Development Team of 2XKO Laid Off by Riot Games Less Than One Month After Games’ Launch
2XKO is a new free-to-play 2v2 tag-team fighting game developed by Rioty Games. It made its official debut last month after being announced during last year’s Game Awards. So far, the game has received a pretty positive reception from both fans and critics of the game, which makes it even more surprising that last week, Riot Games laid off dozens of employees working on the development of 2XKO. Here’s all that has happened since the layoffs.
Riot Games Lays Off Dozens of Employees
Less than one month after the launch of Riot Games’ newest 2v2 tag-team fighting game, 2XKO, the development team has laid off dozens of employees who’ve been working on the development of the fighting game. An estimated 80 roles globally have been affected by the layoffs, bringing the total number of people in the development team to half of what it was.
This most recent round of layoffs comes after Riot closed its Riot Forge program and laid off 530 employees in 2024. Later on that same year, Riot Games laid off even more employees, stating that the development company needed to make these drastic changes to deliver a better experience for fans of their games. It seems Riot Games is doing the same with the development team for 2XKO, wanting to downsize and refocus its priorities with the game and within the company as well.
What Do the Devs Have to Say?
Riot Games producer Tom Cannon opened up about the layoffs, making an official statement about the news. Here’s what Cannon wrote on the Riot Games website addressing the layoffs:
After a lot of discussion and reflection, we are reducing the size of the 2XKO team.
I want you to know that decision wasn’t made lightly. As we expanded from PC to console, we saw consistent trends in how players were engaging with 2XKO. 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.
“With a smaller, focused team, we’re going to dig in and make key improvements to the game, including some of the things we’ve already heard you asking for. We’ll share some of our plans soon,”
“Our plans for the 2026 Competitive Series are unchanged. We remain committed to partnering with tournament organizers and local communities. Our focus will continue to be on supporting the events and organizers that already power the [fighting game community].”
“The people who helped ship 2XKO poured years of creativity, care, and belief into this game. Taking creative risks like this is hard, and the work they did is real and meaningful.”
“We’re committed to supporting impacted Rioters through this transition — including helping them explore opportunities within Riot where possible, and providing a minimum of 6 months of notice pay and severance where it’s not.”
The Future of 2XKO
According to Cannon, even though Riot Games is significantly downsizing the development team for 2XKO, the future of the game remains unchanged. Riot Games announced a 2XKO Competitive Tournament series that would feature 20 Riot-sanctioned tournaments globally, all directly tied to the game’s live-service calendar of five seasons in 2026. Each season includes a specific set of Major and Challenger events.
Majors serve as the premier competitive milestones of the year, while Challengers are regional events designed to provide broad competitive access. The tournament began a few weeks ago, so many people were worried that the layoffs would have some kind of effect on the Competition. Cannon mentions in his statement that plans for the 2026 Competitive Series would not change.
2XKO has already garnered a pretty substantial following, given how big the Competitive Series has gotten. One tournament dubbed the Frosty Faustings XVIII, hosted in Lombard, Illinois, already has a prize pool of over $50,000. Though the layoffs are pretty worrying, especially because this isn’t the first time Riot Games has done this, we can only hope that 2XKO isn’t negatively affected by everything.
