Riot Halts 2XKO Development in December, Servers to Remain Online
The free-to-play fighting game failed to attract a sufficient player base to sustain the project. Riot will refund purchases made by August 20, while Lux and Samira will be the final two characters.
Riot Games will cease active development of 2XKO at the end of 2026, but this will not result in the immediate closure of the game. In the statement published on August 20, the company explained that servers will remain operational even after December on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with no changes to offline playability.
The decision comes after months of analysis on revenue, retention, and engagement. According to Riot, many players tried 2XKO, but too few continued to play it consistently. Not even the arrival of new characters, the PvE mode The Climb, and competitive events produced a lasting change. The company states that operating costs remained significantly higher than revenue and that continuing development for another year without a concrete prospect of sustainability would have been irresponsible.
The scaling back will begin immediately. Riot has already deactivated the purchase of KO Points and will refund money spent in 2XKO by August 20. On PC, amounts related to KO Points and Starter Editions will be returned via the original payment method. Most refunds are expected to arrive in the coming weeks, with the process concluding by November. On PlayStation and Xbox, the respective platforms and payment providers will manage the refunds.
Development will continue for a few more months. With patch 1.3.1 on September 8, Lux will arrive, and all champions will become freely accessible. Battle Passes, KO Points, Champion Tokens, seasons, and events will also be removed. Ranked lobbies will also disappear: competitive matchmaking will merge into Casual lobbies, which will still match players based on skill level.
In October, Samira, the last character planned for 2XKO, will arrive along with patch 1.3.3, which Riot considers the last major content update. A final patch primarily dedicated to bug fixes may follow in December.
This is a particularly rapid conclusion for a project that launched Early Access on PC on October 7, 2025 and reached PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on January 20, 2026. However, 2XKO will not disappear in December: it will remain free to download and playable online, while Riot promises advance notice if server plans change in the future.