2XKO, Riot Games’ free-to-play tag-team fighting game set in its League of Legends universe, has struggled to find a sustainable audience since arriving in January. Those troubles have finally come to a head; come December, the developer will cease active development of the game.
In a blog post, Riot states, “Over the last few months, we’ve been monitoring 2XKO’s trajectory closely, and what we’ve seen is painting a clear, consistent picture: while a lot of you jumped in to try the game and there’s an incredible community that plays every day, we haven’t seen enough players stick with the game to get to a path toward sustainability.”
Although 2XKO will no longer receive updates after December (Riot does not specify the date), the game will not be shut down. Riot states the servers will remain active past December, so players can still play online matches for the foreseeable future. Throughout the rest of the year, Riot will introduce content such as two new champions in Lux and Samira, and feature improvements. This includes a final bug fix patch arriving in December. Offline play will be unaffected by these changes.
Riot is also unlocking all champs, bundling most cosmetic items, and refunding all money spent on 2XKO on or before August 20. KO Point purchases are now disabled. Purchased content is “yours to keep,” Riot states, and Avatar and player profile items will be unlockable for credits once a patch hits in September. “Our goal now is to do right by the players who have invested in us so far and want to continue playing 2XKO, as well as the Rioters who have poured everything into delivering on this dream,” writes Riot.
The remainder of the blog post candidly muses about Riot’s hopes for 2XKO while acknowledging the studio’s inability to attract a larger audience. When the game wasn’t panning out, it says it considered multiple options such as reducing headcount and changing the game’s business model before deciding that sunsetting the game was the best option. The post also lists a detailed roadmap of upcoming patches.
2XKO was first revealed in 2019 under the codename Project L, itself born from the ashes of Rising Thunder, a once-in-development fighting game built on promoting approachability. The game launched in PC early access in September 2025 before graduating to 1.0 and jumping to consoles on January 20. Unfortunately, despite garnering generally positive reviews, 2XKO’s struggles became apparent soon after launch, as Riot laid off 80 employees – roughly half of 2XKO’s development team – just three weeks later. At the time, Riot cited similar problems attracting an audience.
As 2026 progressed, it’s probably not a stretch to think 2XKO’s troubles were at least somewhat exacerbated by the launches of competing tag-team fighting games such as Invincible VS and Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, which vie for similar audiences. Did you play 2XKO? If so, what do you think of it? If not, does today’s news pique your interest enough to give it a try? Let us know in the comments.
