Riot cuts 80 employees 3 weeks after League of Legends spinoff celebrates official launch: "We're reshaping the team to give 2XKO a more sustainable path"

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2. Fighting Games

Riot cuts 80 employees 3 weeks after League of Legends spinoff celebrates official launch: "We're reshaping the team to give 2XKO a more sustainable path" News By Ashley Bardhan published 9 February 2026

"I want you to know that decision wasn't made lightly," says executive producer Tom Cannon

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(Image credit: Riot Games)

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League of Legends spinoff fighting game 2XKO just enjoyed its full, official launch on January 20 and now, just three weeks later, Riot has laid off a number of its developers.

Game Developer reports about 80 employees have been impacted by what executive producer Tom Cannon is describing in an announcement post as "an important update on 2XKO."

"As we expanded from PC to console, we saw consistent trends in how players were engaging with 2XKO," Cannon explains. "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." He promises, "This isn't a judgment on individual Rioters or a signal that the journey is over. We're reshaping the team to give 2XKO a more sustainable path forward."

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Cannon makes a point of noting, "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." He emphasizes that Riot is committed to finding laid off staff employment within the publisher "where possible, and providing a minimum of 6 months of notice pay and severance where it's not."

Meanwhile, Patrick Miller, a former Riot developer who worked at the studio for 12 years and on free-to-play fighting game 2XKO for 10 of them says he was laid off with only 30 minutes notice.

"Gonna take some time," he writes on Bluesky.

Cannon doesn't have much more comfort to offer. He says vaguely in his announcement, "I know this update will raise questions and concerns. That's understandable. We'll continue communicating about how things are progressing."

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League of Legends was completely down yesterday unless you reset your system clock, because Riot forgot to update a security certificate.

CATEGORIES PC Gaming Xbox Series X PS5 Platforms Xbox PlayStation Ashley BardhanSenior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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