2XKO hasn’t even completed its first month out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Collection X/S and Riot Video games is already chopping its losses. The League of Legends maker introduced that it might be shedding 80 workers because the tag-teaming battle sport fails to achieve momentum.
“I would like you to know that call wasn’t made evenly. As we expanded from PC to console, we noticed constant traits in how gamers have been participating with 2XKO,” government producer Tom Cannon wrote in a new blog post on February 9. “The sport has resonated with a passionate core viewers, however total momentum hasn’t reached the extent wanted to help a crew of this dimension long run.”
That includes fighters from League of Legends‘ Runeterra universe, 2XKO employs stunning cel-shaded animations and tons of flashy combos. But it surely appears none of that was sufficient to assist it make an enormous splash within the preventing sport neighborhood when it got here to PC in Early Entry final October. The sport hit its 1.0 launch and arrived on consoles final month, the place it turned the third most-downloaded free-to-play sport throughout PS4 and PS5, placing it forward of Marvel Rivals and Highguard.
That sounds…not unhealthy contemplating the sport’s current trajectory, however apparently Riot was anticipating one thing a lot greater. Or perhaps it was at all times the plan to chop the event crew in half after launch because the League of Legends firm struggles to seek out success exterior of its hit MOBA.
Cannon mentioned that there aren’t any plans to tug the plug on 2XKO,and its remaining crew will proceed updating the sport and carrying by way of with its year-one aggressive plans. “In the end, this choice displays a shift in how we function,” he wrote. “This isn’t a judgment on particular person Rioters or a sign that the journey is over. We’re reshaping the crew to present 2XKO a extra sustainable path ahead.”
Cannon acknowledged how unhealthy the layoffs and the timing sounded. “I do know this replace will increase questions and issues,” he wrote. “That’s comprehensible.” However he didn’t have something extra concrete to share to reassure followers.
