Riot Games' ambitious fighting‑game project, 2XKO, faced a harsh reality check when its chief product officer, Marc Merrill, explained that the title would have required a massive monthly active user (MAU) count—"in the high hundreds of thousands, if not millions"—to be financially viable. This insight came during an appearance on The Lemonade Stand podcast, a conversation later highlighted by IGN, where Merrill reflected on the game's performance and the strategic missteps that led to its current status. Merrill acknowledged that 2XKO did manage to strike a chord with a dedicated subset of the gaming community.
However, he emphasized that the size of this niche audience fell dramatically short of the threshold needed to support the live‑service model Riot had envisioned. Live‑service games depend on a constant influx of players, regular content updates, and ongoing microtransaction revenue.
Without a sufficiently large and engaged player base, the costs of server maintenance, development, and marketing quickly outweigh any income generated. Development on 2XKO officially wound down in August, a decision driven by the fact that the game's operating expenses far exceeded its revenue. Merrill noted that even after deploying substantial updates intended to boost engagement, the player count remained relatively flat.
This stagnation meant that the title was "substantially more expensive to operate than it brought in," prompting Riot to cease further active development. Despite the halt in new content, Riot has kept the game accessible.
2XKO remains free to download and can still be played on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Moreover, the company has committed to maintaining the servers at least until 2026, ensuring that existing fans can continue to enjoy the experience without interruption. One external factor that Merrill cited as compounding 2XKO's challenges was the release timing of Capcom's Street Fighter 6. He explained that Riot had a window of opportunity to make a significant impact on the fighting‑game community, but the arrival of Street Fighter 6—released roughly eight years after Riot began work on 2XKO—diluted the market's attention.
"We had an awesome development team of really talented people that did great work and made a beautiful game," Merrill said, expressing both pride in the product and frustration at the timing. He added that the team had already communicated their vision to the community and were prepared to push forward, but the competitive landscape shifted dramatically with Street Fighter 6's debut. Merrill speculated that had 2XKO launched earlier, ideally years before Street Fighter 6 entered the scene, it could have left a "really significant impact" on the genre. This hypothetical scenario underscores how critical market timing is for new titles, especially in crowded spaces like fighting games where flagship franchises dominate player interest.
The origins of 2XKO trace back to Riot's 2016 acquisition of Radiant Entertainment. Radiant had previously released a free‑to‑play fighting game called Rising Thunder, which entered alpha in 2015 and served as a major source of inspiration for Riot's later project.
After the acquisition, Riot removed Rising Thunder from storefronts and eventually cancelled its development, later releasing the game's code as open source in 2017. Merrill explained that Riot aimed to blend Rising Thunder's "simple controls and cool concept relating to a 1v1 fighting game" with the rich lore of the League of Legends universe—specifically the Cannon brothers—and overlay it with a Riot‑style competitive ecosystem. This hybrid vision gave birth to 2XKO.
However, the journey from concept to launch was not smooth. Leadership changes within Riot led to a lack of clear strategic alignment. Merrill described a situation where the team received conflicting guidance, resulting in "managerial fracturing" and an overall sense of disarray. He took responsibility for these internal issues, stating, "We've got nobody to blame but ourselves," acknowledging that miscommunication and shifting priorities hampered the project's execution.
In summary, 2XKO's story is a cautionary tale about the importance of scale, timing, and internal cohesion in the development of live‑service games. While the title showcased impressive design work and attracted a passionate core audience, the inability to reach a critical mass of monthly active users, coupled with fierce competition from established franchises and internal strategic missteps, ultimately limited its commercial success. Riot's commitment to keeping the game online through 2026 offers a silver lining for fans, allowing the community to continue enjoying the product while the company reflects on the lessons learned for future endeavors.