Riot Games has laid off members of the 2XKO development team just weeks after the fighting game officially went live. The layoffs hit weeks after its launch on consoles, shaking the community’s confidence in the game’s future.

The announcement came on February 9, less than a month after 2XKO officially launched on January 20 across PC and consoles. “

The game has resonated with a passionate core audience, but overall momentum hasn’t reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term,” said Tom Cannon, Executive Producer for 2XKO. 

Cannon said the studio will now restructure around a smaller, more focused team, aiming to improve the game in targeted ways. Riot claims this approach will allow developers to focus on key updates and community-requested changes while putting 2XKO on a more sustainable path forward.

“A More Sustainable Path Forward”

2XKO was first revealed by Riot Games in 2019 under the codename Project L, as the studio’s League of Legends–based fighting game project. After years of quiet development and multiple playtests, 2XKO entered a short closed beta in September 2025, followed by early access a month later.

By January 2XKO was available on consoles with its first live patch. 21 days later, 80 people from its team were laid off, according to GameDeveloper.

Impacted employees will receive “a minimum of 6 months of notice pay and severance,” said Riot, along with assistance in finding other roles within the company where possible.

Riot framed the layoffs as a reflection of a shift in how they operate, rather than a signal that 2XKO is being deprioritized. Cannon emphasized that the move is intended to give the game a “more sustainable path forward,” especially after analyzing player behavior following the game’s expansion from PC to console.

The announcement was met with disappointment across the community – as evidenced in the Reddit thread below – with many players expressing concern about the game’s future despite those assurances. Fans quickly drew comparisons to Legends of Runeterra, noting that Riot supported their online card game for roughly four years—from 2020 to 2024—before significantly scaling it back. 

An Update on 2XKO
byu/Spideraxe30 in2XKO

While Riot positions the layoffs as a way to ensure longevity, cutting staff so soon after launch does little to build confidence that sustained support is guaranteed. For some players, a “smaller, focused team” sounds less like optimization and more like an early sign of things heading south.

For now, 2XKO remains live, its competitive roadmap intact on paper, and its first major patch still on the horizon. Whether Riot’s leaner approach will stabilize the game—or simply slow its momentum—will likely become clear much sooner than anyone expects.