2XKO, Riot’s League of Legends fighting spin-off, is having its development team significantly cut back not long after release. Game Developer report a Riot spokesperson as stating the publishers have put plans in motion to lay off around 80 developers on the game, about half of the global team who’ve been working on it, with the potential for some of the affected workers to land in new posts at Riot.

Riot’s official blog post acknowledging the layoffs, attributed to 2XKO executive producer Tom Cannon, doesn’t offer any numbers.

“After a lot of discussion and reflection, we are reducing the size of the 2XKO team,” the post reads. “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.”

Cue words about a “smaller, focused team” needing to “dig in and make key improvements to the game” in order to give it “a more sustainable path forward”. The post also makes clear that staff affected by the layoffs who aren’t slotted into new positions at Riot will receive “a minimum of 6 months of notice pay and severance”. “The people who helped ship 2XKO poured years of creativity, care, and belief into this game,” Cannon added. “Taking creative risks like this is hard, and the work they did is real and meaningful.”

Riot’s plans for 2XKO’s 2026 competitive events remain unchanged, for what it’s worth.

Following some pre-release testing, the fighting game which went by the codename Project L up until being christened 2XKO in 2024 finally released in early access late last year. A full release followed on January 20th, 21 days ago as I write this.

These 2XKO layoffs following two significant rounds of job cuts at Riot within the past couple of years. Around 530 workers were jettisoned in March 2024, with Riot shuttering their Forge publishing label, and a further 32 staff being let go in October the same year.