Riot Ends 2XKO Development After Skin Sales Funded Evo 2026’s Largest Prize Pool

What the report says

Riot Games will end active development of 2XKO in December, closing out a fighting game whose in-game cosmetics had, eight weeks earlier, been paying for the largest prize pool at this year’s Evolution Championship Series.According to the Aug. 20 announcement, servers will remain online beyond 2026 and the game will stay playable and free to download on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Two final champions, Lux and Samira, arrive before a last bug-fix patch in December. Riot disabled purchases of KO Points, the game’s premium currency, the same day, and is refunding KO Points and Starter Edition purchases made prior to Aug.

20.“We would have continued active development if we saw any viable future, but 2XKO costs us substantially more to operate than it brings in, and engagement has stayed relatively flat despite our larger updates,” the company wrote.For tournament organizers, the more consequential number is not the refund.In a Dec. 5 post outlining competitive plans for 2026, Riot introduced Frame Perfect, a competitive-themed skin line under which “a portion of proceeds go toward supporting TOs across the world,” covering both prize pools and tournament production costs. GamesBeat reported that the structure borrowed from the Champions team skin revenue share in Valorant.

It was a material upgrade on the 2025 arrangement: Riot’s predecessor circuit, First Impact, ran across 22 community-organized competitions with a $2,500 duo bounty and no revenue share at all, as previously reported by The Esports Advocate.It worked faster than expected. On April 23, Evo said Riot’s sponsored prize pools at all three of its 2026 events would rise to $75,000 apiece. “Thanks to your contributions via the ‘Frame Perfect’ skin bundle, the Riot-sponsored prize pools for 2XKO across #EvoJapan2026, #Evo2026, and #EvoFrance2026 will be increased to $75,000 per event,” the organizer wrote.

Key details

The Riot-sponsored pool for Evo Japan had previously been listed at $60,000, Dot Esports reported, and the new figure excluded both Evo’s own base pot and a separate $5,000 duo bounty.The result was visible at Evo in Las Vegas from June 26 to 28. 2XKO finished with a $135,000 prize pool, the largest of any title at the event, ahead of Street Fighter 6 at $100,000 and Tekken 8 at $70,000. It did so on a fraction of their turnout: 1,081 entrants against 2,416 for Street Fighter 6 and 1,355 for Tekken 8, according to Liquipedia records of the event.

A game five months past launch was paying better than the two pillars of the genre.That mechanism is now switched off.With KO Points sales disabled and prepaid cards no longer usable in 2XKO, the only remaining real-money product is a $39.99 Ultimate Bundle arriving with the Sept. 8 patch, packaging “all skins, skin chromas, and taunts for every champion up to and including Lux.” Riot’s announcement does not say whether any of its proceeds reach tournament organizers. It does not mention Frame Perfect at all.The prize commitments stand regardless. “The Competitive Series is unchanged through 2026, and we’ll continue to support players and TOs,” the announcement reads.

“This includes prizing for all Major and Challenger events.” With the revenue share gone, that money now comes from Riot directly. Three sanctioned events fall after the September patch: First Attack in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Oct. 3 and 4; Evo France in Nice from Oct. 9 to 11, where 2XKO remains on the eight-title lineup; and Battle Coliseum in São Paulo on Nov. 21 and 22, which Riot says will be the final Competitive Series event.What follows is not a budget. “Beyond 2026, TOs can continue to run events featuring 2XKO using the Community Competition Guidelines, online or offline,” the announcement says.

More from the announcement

That document permits events at any scale without Riot approval and states that “there are no monetary thresholds or limits for prizing, entry fees, or sponsorship agreements.” Organizers may charge entry fees and sell sponsorships, but may not use Riot’s logo, imply the company’s involvement or broadcast on linear television. The ceiling is unlimited and the floor is zero.There was never a floor. Michael Sherman, Riot’s global head of Teamfight Tactics and emerging esports, told GamesBeat in January that the arrangement carried no guaranteed payout. “So there’s a lot already built in there, but it is not being framed as a minimum guarantee,” he said.Organizers took the deal on those terms because the alternative was nothing.

“Anything that helps tournaments increase prize pools and recoup production costs is critical in the decentralized, grassroots ecosystem that competitive fighting games rely on.