PS5, Xbox, and PC AAA launch to shutdown after less than 1 year as mass community outrage ensues

Hot off the success of Arcane - the League of Legends anime Netflix adaptation that blew up - Riot Games has been clamoring for chances to expand its lore-deep, fantastical world with new games.

Starting with Teamfight Tactics (an auto-battler strategy spin-off), Riot developed the digital card game Legends of Runeterra and a mobile-console MOBA called Wild Rift.

The most recent of their games to hit the market was 2XKO. The Street Fighter-inspired 2v2 tag-team fighter soared to success at launch, with popular characters like Jinx, Vi, and Ekko carrying the way.

Available on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC through the Riot Games client, the League of Legends spin-off was well-received by the fighting game community, but has since fallen off.

Now, after just one year, Riot Games has announced that the game will be sunset, with support ending by the end of the year.

Outrage erupts as Riot Games sunsets 2XKO

Announced in a blog post, support for 2XKO will end in December 2026. Servers will remain active, a final update will release two new champions and fix the outstanding bugs, and any purchases made so far will be refunded.

"2XKO’s active development will conclude at the end of 2026. Over the last few months, we’ve been monitoring 2XKO’s trajectory closely, and what we’ve seen is painting a clear, consistent picture: while a lot of you jumped in to try the game and there's an incredible community that plays every day, we haven’t seen enough players stick with the game to get to a path toward sustainability," Riot Games said.

The announcement has hit the community hard, with many criticising the developers for having their sights set too high.

"Bro Riot is inane," said popular content creator Ludwig Ahgren.

"It feels like Mark Marrell has the company in a chokehold where if their game doesn’t make 1 billion dollars instantly he shuts it down. No community building, no thought of making a beautiful game just pure profit or die."

A second post gained mass support, saying, "Riot really needs to stop cancelling everything that isn't as big as LoL. You're never gonna reach that level of success again. It's unrealistic to shit-can everything (and everyone) that doesn't reach that bar. Fools."

A third added, "If my mom gave up on me when I was 1 years old, I would have never learned to read. Or walk. Or talk. Just something you should think about."

Given that the League of Legends universe is immensely popular, the decision to cancel its progress so early is a bitter pill to swallow.

And it sets a scary precedent.

League of Legends' upcoming MMORPG could face a familiar fate

Riot Games has already cancelled a number of projects in recent years, with 2XKO following the sandbox RPG Hytale and 'Project F', which was set to be a larger RPG title set in the League of Legends universe.

The final spin-off in development is a highly anticipated MMORPG, also set in the LoL universe.

Rebooted in 2024, the Runeterra-based game was set to launch in 2028, but following the lacklustre performance of the other spin-offs, the game could face a familiar fate.

At least, that's the major fear from the LoL community now.

What's also worth mentioning is that we've yet to see the 'next Arcane'. The TV series ended in Season 2 and won't be expanded further, but Riot insisted that there will be more stories coming based on different characters. Yet, we're still waiting on that too.

While League of Legends and VALORANT remain two of the biggest live-service competitive titles in the world, the spin-offs are all meeting a similar canned fate.