Riot Games has announced it will end active development on its tag-team fighting game 2XKO in December 2026, less than a year after its full console debut in January, citing insufficient player retention and engagement required to maintain a sustainable live-service model.
When Riot Games launched its tag-team fighter 2XKO for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, the company brought a stable of League of Legends characters and development history to the competitive fighting scene. Originally launched in early access for PC in October 2025 following a development cycle that began in 2019 under the working title Project L, the game faced a steep climb against established genre giants like Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8.
Despite pockets of early enthusiasm from the fighting game community and appearances on the main stage at EVO, player retention figures fell short of what was required to keep the project viable.
The Build-Up and Rocky Launch of Project L
The project began in 2019, and the game underwent iterative testing and closed betas before arriving in early access in late 2025 and seeing its official console rollout on January 20, 2026.
From the outset, however, the title encountered operational hurdles. A full ranked reset occurred just days into the initial season. Compounding those early stumbles, leadership initiated a sharp downsizing of the development team shortly after the console launch.
Layoffs Hit the Development Team Weeks After Release
Just a month after the full console launch, executive producer Tom Cannon announced that the studio was scaling back its workforce. The reduction affected approximately 80 employees globally, amounting to nearly half of the total development staff working on the game.
“As we expanded from PC to console, we saw consistent trends in how players were engaging with 2XKO. The game has resonated with a passionate core audience, but overall momentum hasn’t reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term.”
Tom Cannon, executive producer
Riot offered affected workers assistance in exploring other internal roles, backed by a minimum of six months of notice and severance compensation for those not reassigned.
Why Retention Failed to Meet the Threshold for Sustainability
The core business model relied on a free-to-play structure designed to attract casual players and convert them over time, starting with dedicated fighting game enthusiasts and expanding outward as features accumulated. While diehard fans of tag fighters embraced the mechanics, most casual players drifted away.
“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.”
Riot Games, via official developer update
The End-of-Life Roadmap and Refund Policy for Players
Rather than pulling the plug immediately, Riot Games has outlined a structured wind-down plan through the remainder of 2026. The servers will remain operational beyond December to support online play, and offline functionality will remain entirely unaffected. Before active development ceases, developers intend to introduce further content updates, feature improvements, and two additional champions: Lux and Samira.
To compensate players who invested financially in the project, Riot initiated a sweeping refund policy. All money spent on the game on or before August 20 is being refunded, and all characters have been unlocked for free. Most cosmetic items are being bundled together, while avatar and player profile items will become unlockable for Credits beginning with patch 1.3.1 in September. Any content currently owned remains with the player permanently.
For 2XKO, the experiment demonstrates that even preparation and recognizable intellectual property cannot guarantee a permanent foothold in the fiercely competitive fighting genre.
