In one of the more heartbreaking developments in the games industry this year, Riot’s League of Legends fighting game, 2XKO, will officially end active development in December.
The writing has been on the wall for some time now, but the official news still hit the fighting game community like a freight train. The 2XKO team explained the situation in a blog post on August 20, admitting that there simply aren’t enough active players to justify continued support.
“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,” their post reads.
With a heavy heart, the @Play2XKO team shares an update about the future.
– Active development will end in December.
– The final content patch goes live in October.
– Servers stay online.
– In-game purchases made before August 20 will be refunded.https://t.co/3UQF7kh5S4 pic.twitter.com/FKquzTd6xc— Riot Games (@riotgames) August 20, 2026
As of right now, 2XKO will remain online beyond 2026, and offline play will not be affected. The team will continue to introduce new content throughout the rest of the year, including feature improvements, two new champions in Lux and Samira, and a final bug fix patch in December.
It’s unclear if this will remain true in the future, though, as the wording of Riot’s blog post made it seem as though the status of active online play is subject to change. “We’ll give advanced notice if any of that changes,” it reads.
The team went on to give a preview of what’s coming next for the game: In the coming months, Riot will disable KO Points purchases, refund all purchases made prior to August 20, add a purchasable bundle of nearly all 2XKO cosmetic content for $39.99, and make most items available for Credits. Riot will also unlock most gameplay content, including all champions.
It’s also removing systems like Battle Passes, KO Points, Champion Tokens, seasons, and events, as well as disabling ranked lobbies to better streamline the casual lobby experience. “Ranked lobbies will be disabled to ensure that we can matchmake within a single pool of players per server,” the post explains. “Casual lobbies will still be matchmade by skill, so you should still expect to see players around your skill level.” Private lobbies will remain unaffected by these changes.
Notably, the 2XKO Competitive Series will continue through the end of 2026, but after that, it’s gone for good. Riot will continue to support players and tournament organizers during this time, including providing prizing for all Major and Challenger events. The final Competitive Series event will still take place in November. 2027 and onwards, TOs can continue to run both offline and online events featuring the game using their community competition guidelines.
The team went on to explain why development for the game is ending, saying “diehard tag fighter players loved 2XKO, but most other fighting game players struggled to find reasons to stick with the game. …We saw no meaningful, sustained change in 2XKO’s trajectory; only a fraction of what it would take to trend toward sustainability. Over time it became clear it would be impossible for us to continue actively developing the game as we are today.”
Although the team looked at all available options — reducing the size of their workforce (something that happened back in February), adjusting patch schedules, and changing their business model — they discovered that “finishing the rest of our work-in-progress content and sunsetting active development was the best route forward for players and Rioters.”
Needless to say, the response from the FGC hasn’t been positive. It even sparked a response from Evo, the world’s largest fighting game tournament, which wrote: “Not the news we wanted to hear today. Sending love to the team who worked so hard to bring the game to life.”
“I feel terrible for the 2XKO team and so sad for myself and everyone who loves this game,” one player wrote on X. “Shame on Riot for the way they turn their backs on games they develop that don’t have LoL numbers.”
“Riot really needs to stop cancelling everything that isn’t as big as LoL. You’re never gonna reach that level of success again. It’s unrealistic to shit-can everything (and everyone) that doesn’t reach that bar,” another said.
As previously mentioned, the writing has been on the wall for 2XKO for some time now. Players feared the worst after Riot laid off dozens of the game’s development team back in February, worrying that this move heralded the eventual death of the title. Unfortunately, it seems they were right, though there’s at least some silver lining with servers remaining online for the time being.
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.
