2026 will live as one of the best and worst years for gaming, with so many games and studio shutdowns and layoffs hitting studios left and right; this year will live in infamy for gaming. And unfortunately, another game will be reaching its end, as Riot Games announced on August 20th that they will end active development for 2XKO in December 2026, bringing the free-to-play fighting game to an end. The servers for the game will remain active after December and will be playable on all platforms. Any purchases made on or before August 20th, 2026 will be refunded, and all cosmetics and unlockables are yours to keep.
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
2XKO has had a bumpy road: only six months ago, the dev team suffered layoffs affecting around 80 people. Riot stated the team was too big to support in the future, but they planned to stand by the game. And now the game will end active development, and the reason is that the numbers aren’t there to support it.
“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,” stated Riot.
The game has had success with new character releases and overall performance, and, being free-to-play, it has had a good year. But the bottom line is that player retention isn’t there.
“Even in these highlight moments, however, 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.”
Even with this announcement, the game will still have new content and characters leading up to December, with the December patch primarily focused on bug fixes. The game will also be playable past December, as servers will remain active, and purchases made on or before August 20th will be fully refunded across all platforms. Riot plans for 2XKO to stick around even after it’s been sunsetted.
This entire situation sucks, as another game with a lot of promise is now coming to an end. Fighting games, no matter how you make them, have been a hard sell and remain niche in the gaming sphere due to their difficulty and learning curve, as, at the end of the day, gamers hate losing and don’t want to blame themselves for failure. Riot states they wanted 2XKO to be a game where the fighting game community can love, enjoy, and play with friends; this is why they made it free to play. But Riot should have known it wasn’t gonna be easy, as the game’s name didn’t stand out, especially since it was linked to League of Legends, and with low marketing, the game didn’t have the pull and backing it needed at launch.
“As we mentioned above, we want to do right by the players who want to continue playing 2XKO, and deeply respect the love put into the game and the scene up to now. 2XKO remains online and playable, and we aren’t going anywhere yet. We’ve still got more content to show you through the end of this year, and we are truly grateful to everyone who has been a part of 2XKO’s journey so far. “
