If you had “Riot Games sunsetting a fighting game in record time” on your 2026 bingo card, go ahead and claim your prize (I know I will be). Riot officially dropped the news that active development for 2XKO, its free-to-play League of Legends tag-team fighter, will be wrapping up in December 2026.

While the hard-pivoting news stings for fans who spent years tracking Project L updates, Riot is attempting to land the plane as smoothly as possible. The game is not going totally dark, but the dream of a decade-long live-service fighting game behemoth has officially hit the wall.

The Player Numbers Just Would Not Stick

According to Riot, the decision boils down to brutal arithmetic. Plenty of people dropped in to check out the game, and a dedicated core community showed up every single day, but total player retention never hit the numbers needed to make the project self-sustaining.

Tag fighters are notoriously tough to learn, and despite stacking the dev team with fighting game royalty, 2XKO struggled to bridge the gap between casual League fans and battle-hardened Street Fighter or Tekken vets.

The game ended up costing substantially more to run than it was bringing in, and even dropping flashy champion releases like Akali and Senna failed to move the needle long-term.

Riot wrote: “To be super clear: we would have continued active development if we saw any viable future, but 2XKO costs us substantially more to operate than it brings in, and engagement has stayed relatively flat despite our larger updates.”

The Good News: Free Champions and Full Refunds

Before pulling the plug on active development, Riot is giving the community a proper send-off gift package. Starting with patch 1.3.1 in September, every single champion in the game will be instantly unlocked for all players.

On top of that, battle passes and paid currencies are being scrapped, cosmetics are getting bundled together, and remaining items can be picked up with earnable in-game credits.

Riot is also offering full refunds for any money spent in 2XKO on or before August 20. If you bought KO Points or champion bundles on PC, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X|S, that cash is heading back to your original payment method.

The Final Roster Additions and What Comes Next

The development team is not walking out the door immediately. They still have a few updates left in the pipeline to round out the year. Lux is scheduled to arrive in September, followed by Samira making her grand entrance as the final champion release in October. A final bug-fix patch will land in December to tidy up the code before active work stops for good.

Oh, and Riot just couldn’t help trying to get money for skins one last time. There will be a $40 bundle with nearly all skins: “The 2XKO Ultimate Bundle launches in patch 1.3.1. It contains all skins, skin chromas, and taunts for every champion up to and including Lux, plus all currently-released finishers. 

“For those who want to pick up everything in 2XKO, this bundle packages most cosmetics into a single purchase.”

As for the game itself, the servers will stay online past 2026, so you can still hop into casual lobbies, invite friends to private matches, or run local offline tournaments. Ranked mode is getting sunset, but if you just want to throw hands with your favorite Runeterra characters, the stage will remain open.