Riot Games has announced that 2XKO will end development this year. Although this fighting game with the characters of “League of Legends” as the core attracted a group of players to try it after its launch, Riot said that after several months of observation, it still did not see enough players to stay, so the game is not currently on the path to sustainable development.
Players come, but they just can’t stay
Riot stated in the announcement that many players have indeed entered “2XKO” to play, and there is still a group of active players supporting the game every day, but the problem is that the player loss rate is too fast. For fighting games, a genre that relies heavily on long-term active players, it is not enough to have people come to play at the beginning. What really matters is whether players can stay and continue playing. This time Riot obviously believes that “2XKO” currently fails to achieve this.
From “changing slowly” to calling it a day
What’s even more embarrassing is that Riot actually knew that “2XKO” might encounter problems after it was launched. 2025 game director Shaun Rivera has admitted that the team may have a bumpy time entering Early Access because this is the first time many developers have dominated a fighting game. At that time, the official also stated that they would continue to try different directions and make adjustments based on player feedback.
As a result, in less than a year, it has now changed from “we will slowly repair it” to “stop development this year.” It’s a bit sudden for players. After all, Riot’s works have always had long-term ambitions, but “2XKO” seems to have not waited for the opportunity to turn around this time.
Riot doesn’t have no players, it just doesn’t have enough players!
Riot did not say this time that no one plays “2XKO” at all. Instead, it emphasized that there is still a community that is active every day. The problem is that this scale is not enough for the game to achieve long-term sustainable development. To put it simply, there are not “zero” players, but “not enough”. For a fighting game that focuses on long-term battles, the lethality is more direct.
“2XKO”, which was originally expected to be the fighting game version of “League of Legends”, has now reached the end of development shortly after its official launch. Riot once wanted to grow this game slowly, but players told it based on the actual number of people that this field did not seem to be as easy to grow as imagined.