Riot is giving up on its League of Legends fighting game already

Riot has confirmed that active development on 2XKO will end soon, less than a year after the League of Legends fighting game launched. While the title drew early interest, Riot says it never reached the player retention needed to support long‑term live‑service development.

In its update, Riot explained that 2XKO’s engagement remained flat throughout 2026, even during major content drops and competitive events. New champions, PvE additions and feature updates did not shift the game’s overall trajectory, and the studio says the player base never reached the minimum threshold required for sustainability.

As someone who follows gaming news quite closely, I don't recall ever hearing about these major content drops, in fact, the game itself kind of launched out of nowhere, so there was certainly a lack of marketing support being a contributing factor here. The playtest periods prior to launch had more visibility than anything that followed.

Servers for 2XKO will remain online beyond 2026, and the game will stay playable on all platforms. Riot will finish its remaining work‑in‑progress content this year, including two new champions, Lux in September and Samira in October, followed by a final bug‑fix patch planned for December.

Riot is also simplifying progression and monetisation. All champions will be unlocked for every player, and most cosmetic items will be bundled into a new Ultimate Bundle. Many avatar items, chromas and stages will become earnable with Credits. Battle Passes, KO Points, seasons, events and Ranked mode are being removed, with matchmaking shifting entirely to skill‑based Casual lobbies.

All money spent in 2XKO before August 20 will be refunded. If you spent any money on the game, you should have your refund sorted by November.

Competitive support will continue through 2026, including a final Competitive Series event in November. After that, community organisers will still be able to run online and offline events under Riot’s guidelines, but there will be no official support from Riot, so don't expect any significant prize pools or anything like that.

KitGuru Says: Did any of you try 2XKO? 

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