Riot Games is winding down 2XKO active development in December

What the report says

Diego Argüello,Contributing Editor, News,GameDeveloper.comAugust 25, 20262 Min ReadImage via Riot GamesRiot Games is winding down active development of its fighting game, 2XKO, in December of this year.As announced last week, active development will conclude at the end of 2026. The studio will continue introducing content and feature improvements, as well as two new champions, up until December. Then, Riot intends to deliver a final bug fix patch.Servers will remain on to support online play for the foreseeable future, and offline play is unaffected for the time being. The studio is also unlocking all champions, as well as bundling most cosmetic items and refunding all money spent in 2XKO on or before August 20."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 said.The studio's currently goal is to "do right by the players" who invested in the game so far and want to continue playing, as well as the "Rioters who have poured everything into delivering on this dream."Reflecting on the business side of the game, which got an official launch on January of this year, Riot hoped that by making the game free, it could make the fighting game genre "more accessible and discoverable" to new players.

It was also aware that the free-to-play model comes with a minimum player requirement to "support these ambitions."Riot says that reception was largely positive and encouraging from different subsets of the fighting came community. But in the end, it wasn't enough for the studio's expectations. "Diehard tag fighter players loved 2XKO, but most other fighting game players struggled to find reasons to stick with the game," it says.Moreover, 2XKO costs the studio "substantially more to operate than it brings in." When evaluating options moving forward, which included "reducing team size, adjusting path schedules, and changing business model" as examples," Riot concluded that sunsetting active development was the best route forward.It's worth remembering that Riot laid off roughly 80 employees from the 2XKO back in February, while Demiurge Studios, which worked as co-developer on the project, reportedly laid off staff last year."Looking to the future, you can count on Riot to keep exploring new genres and ways to bring players together," the announcement concludes.

"For now, we're focused on leaving 2X in a great spot. Then, we'll head back into the R&D lab, where we'll take time to learn and work on how we come back stronger for the next swing at the next genre."Top StoriesRiot GamesAbout the AuthorDiego ArgüelloContributing Editor, News, GameDeveloper.comDiego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist and critic from Argentina. Video games helped him to learn English, so now he covers them for places like The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, and more. He also runs Into the Spine, a site dedicated to fostering and supporting new writers, and co-hosted Turnabout Breakdown, a podcast about the Ace Attorney series.

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