Riot Games’ ambitious fighting‑game project, 2XKO, faced a steep hurdle when it came to the size of its player community. According to Marc Merrill, the company’s chief product officer, the title would have needed to maintain a monthly active user (MAU) count that reached "the high hundreds of thousands, if not millions" in order to be financially viable and support the ongoing live‑service infrastructure the team had envisioned.
Merrill discussed these challenges during an appearance on The Lemonade Stand podcast, an interview that was later highlighted by IGN. He explained that although 2XKO managed to strike a chord with a dedicated subset of gamers, the broader audience was "not nearly enough" to justify the costs associated with continual updates, server maintenance, and competitive support. In his own words, the game’s engagement metrics stayed relatively flat even after the rollout of larger content patches, meaning that the influx of new players and the retention of existing ones did not meet the thresholds required for a sustainable live‑service operation.
Development on 2XKO officially wound down in August, after the team concluded that the operating expenses far exceeded the revenue the game was generating. Despite the cessation of active development, the title remains available for free download on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and Riot has committed to keeping the servers online at least through 2026. This decision allows the existing community to continue enjoying the game, even though no new content is being produced. One of the external factors that Merrill cited as compounding the difficulty of launching 2XKO was the timing of its release relative to other major fighting‑game titles, most notably Capcom’s Street Fighter 6.
He noted that the development of 2XKO began roughly eight years before Street Fighter 6 entered the market, and the latter’s arrival effectively narrowed the window of opportunity for 2XKO to capture a larger share of the fighting‑game audience. "I think 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. "If we had launched years earlier, before Street Fighter 6, we could have made a really significant impact." Merrill also reflected on the internal strengths of the 2XKO project.
He praised the development team, describing them as "awesome" and "really talented," and highlighted the aesthetic and mechanical quality of the game. The team had already communicated a roadmap and future plans to the community, and there was a genuine desire within Riot to keep pushing the title forward. However, the combination of insufficient player numbers and the competitive pressure from established franchises forced a reassessment of priorities.
The origins of 2XKO trace back to Riot’s 2016 acquisition of Radiant Entertainment, a studio known for its experimental fighting‑game prototype Rising Thunder. Rising Thunder, which entered an alpha phase in 2015, featured a streamlined control scheme and a focus on 1v1 combat that appealed to both casual and competitive players. After the acquisition, Riot removed Rising Thunder from commercial storefronts and eventually cancelled further development, later releasing the code as open‑source. Merrill explained that the vision for 2XKO was to blend the simplicity and core concepts of Rising Thunder with Riot’s own intellectual property, specifically the characters known as the Cannon brothers, and to embed the game within Riot’s signature competitive ecosystem.
Unfortunately, the project suffered from internal strategic misalignment as leadership changed over the years. Merrill admitted that the team received mixed messages regarding the game’s direction, leading to what he described as "managerial fracturing." This lack of cohesive strategy contributed to the difficulty of scaling the game’s audience and securing the necessary resources for long‑term support. "We've got nobody to blame but ourselves," he concluded, acknowledging that the shortcomings were largely internal rather than solely the result of external market forces. In summary, 2XKO’s journey illustrates the complex interplay between ambitious game design, community size requirements, timing within a crowded genre, and internal organizational cohesion.
While the game showcased impressive artistry and a solid foundation built on the legacy of Rising Thunder, the combination of a modest player base, fierce competition from heavyweight titles like Street Fighter 6, and strategic drift within Riot ultimately led to the decision to halt further development. The title remains accessible for players who wish to experience its unique take on fighting‑game mechanics, and its servers will stay operational for several more years, offering a lasting, if limited, legacy for the community that did embrace it.