According to Riot Games’ chief product officer Marc Merrill, the fighting‑game project known as 2XKO would have required a massive monthly active user (MAU) count—"in the high hundreds of thousands, if not millions"—to be financially viable. In a recent appearance on The Lemonade Stand podcast, which was highlighted by IGN, Merrill explained that although the title found a niche of enthusiastic fans, the total player pool fell short of the scale needed to underpin the live‑service framework the studio had envisioned.
Merrill noted that the game’s development officially halted in August after the company determined that operating costs were "substantially more than the revenue it generated," and that player engagement metrics had plateaued even after the release of sizeable content updates. Despite the cessation of active development, Riot has kept the game available for free on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and has committed to maintaining server support at least through 2026.
One of the external factors Merrill identified was the timing of Street Fighter 6’s launch. He said that the release of Capcom’s flagship fighting title arrived roughly eight years after Riot first began work on 2XKO, effectively closing the window of opportunity for Riot to make a lasting impact on the fighting‑game community.
"We had a window to do some great things to really help the fighting game community, and then Street Fighter 6 came out," Merrill said. He added that if 2XKO had launched years earlier—ideally before Street Fighter 6 entered the market—the game might have carved out a much larger and more dedicated audience, potentially reshaping the competitive landscape.
Merrill praised the talent and dedication of the development team, describing the product as "a beautiful game" that combined high‑quality design with Riot’s signature competitive ethos. He recounted how the team had already communicated their vision to the community and were prepared to double down on the project, saying, "We were like, ‘You know what? Let’s keep going, let’s give it to the community. Let’s see what happens.’" The origins of 2XKO trace back to Riot’s 2016 acquisition of Radiant Entertainment, a studio best known for the free‑to‑play fighting game Rising Thunder, which entered alpha in 2015.
Rising Thunder served as a primary source of inspiration for 2XKO’s core mechanics. After acquiring Radiant, Riot removed Rising Thunder from commercial storefronts and eventually cancelled further development, later releasing the game's code as open source in 2017. Merrill explained that Riot’s goal was to fuse Rising Thunder’s "simple controls and cool concept relating to a 1v1 fighting game" with the League of Legends intellectual property—specifically the Cannon brothers—and to layer on a Riot‑style competitive ecosystem.
This hybrid approach formed the conceptual backbone of 2XKO. However, internal shifts in leadership created strategic misalignment within the project. Merrill described a situation where the team received contradictory guidance from different parts of the organization, leading to what he called "managerial fracturing." This lack of unified direction, he said, contributed to the ultimate decision to cease active development.
"We've got nobody to blame but ourselves," he remarked, acknowledging that the missteps were internal rather than the result of external market forces alone. In summary, 2XKO’s story illustrates the challenges of launching a new live‑service fighting game in a crowded market.
Even with a talented development team, a strong brand association, and a clear vision, the title struggled to attract the massive player base required to offset operational costs. The timing of competing releases, particularly Street Fighter 6, further compressed the window for growth. While the game remains accessible and supported for several more years, its future hinges on whether a sufficient community can organically grow to meet the high MAU thresholds that Riot originally projected.