2XKO needed hundreds of thousands of monthly players, according to Marc Merrill

• According to Merrill, Riot had been betting on an opening in the fighting game market, but Street Fighter 6 in 2023 changed that plan.
• Riot had already shared the plans with players and chose to keep developing 2XKO rather than cancel the project immediately.

What happened

Riot Games cofounder Marc Merrill reportedly said in an interview that 2XKO would only have been viable with an exceptionally large monthly player base. The estimate cited by IGN works out to high hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions of monthly active users, a level far above what many fighting games typically reach. The reporting ties that scale directly to the question of whether a live-service fighting game with high development and support costs can pay for itself.

Merrill linked that estimate to the market context around Street Fighter 6, which launched on June 2, 2023. According to his comments, Riot had wanted to take advantage of a moment in the fighting game market, but Capcom’s release changed that plan. The source says Riot had already been working on 2XKO for about eight years before Street Fighter 6 arrived, meaning the project was already deep in development when the market shifted. Capcom positioned Street Fighter 6 as a new mainline entry and released it on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.

He also said Riot had already communicated the plans to players and therefore decided to continue developing 2XKO instead of cancelling the project right away. Based on the provided sources, it is not confirmed whether 2XKO was formally cancelled, delayed, or simply described as financially difficult. However, Riot’s later official communication shows the company eventually said active development would end in December 2026 and that it would evaluate the game based on revenue, retention, new players, and engagement. That detail is separate from Merrill’s interview, but it does confirm that Riot assessed the game across multiple performance metrics.

The discussion drew extra attention because a YouTube video using the article’s title, along with several tweets, spread the quote further within the fighting game community. One shared reaction stressed that the required player base was unusually high for a genre often seen as niche. Another summed it up by saying the needed level was far beyond what a fighting game has historically achieved.

Background

2XKO is Riot Games’ 2v2 team-based fighting game featuring League of Legends champions. Riot positioned the game as a competitive title in a genre that is usually less massive than major live-service shooters or battle royale games. That is why the debate centers on how many active players are needed to support a project with ongoing backing.

The provided sources place Merrill’s comments in a broader fighting game community debate. The main contrast is between the scale required for 2XKO and the relatively niche nature of the genre. Social reactions included in the source show that many players were surprised by how high the required monthly active user count was. Another reaction said Riot would not have scrapped the project immediately, but instead released it first to see whether it could gain enough traction.

Riot’s official text about active development ending in December 2026 adds another layer. Riot says that decision was based not only on revenue, but also on retention, new players, and engagement. That makes it clear that 2XKO’s viability depended not just on sales or launch performance, but on the broader performance of a live-service game in 2026. The support page also notes that the 2XKO Competitive Series continues through 2026 to the final official event in November, showing that the competitive structure will still run for some time.

Taken together, the core of the story is straightforward: Riot spent years on 2XKO, Street Fighter 6 changed the market context in 2023, and Merrill later described an exceptionally high threshold for monthly active players. The reporting does not confirm an exact internal Riot target, only a broad estimate in the range of hundreds of thousands to millions of users. That matters because the source mainly shows the scale of the challenge rather than a definitive internal goal.

Sources

• IGN: Riot Games co-founder says 2XKO needed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of monthly active players to survive
• Capcom: Street Fighter 6 to Launch on June 2, 2023!
• Riot Games: 2XKO Active Development Will End in December 2026