Release Date: October 7th, 2025 (Early Access), Full Release TBD
Platforms: PC, Console Release TBD
Developer: Riot Games
Publishers: Riot Games
While it has taken a bit to cook, 2XKO — Riot Games’ ambitious 2v2 tag-team fighter based on the League of Legends IP — is finally in Early Access and free for anyone to try on PC. Until now, only a lucky few have been able to play it at conventions or through Closed Alpha and Beta tests.
The title's story began back in 2016, when Riot Games acquired Radiant Entertainment, a studio that had been working on a promising, but ultimately cancelled, indie fighter called Rising Thunder. Radiant was notably founded by Tom and Tony Cannon, who among other legendary FGC accomplishments are best known as founders of EVO.
We didn't hear much about it until 2019, when it was revealed as Project L during Riot's 10-year anniversary along other new titles Riot had been working on. After nearly a decade since Radiant was acquired, the wait has been worth it!
Although it certainly has more room to grow until it's full release, 2XKO is off to a promising start, hitting a rare sweet spot that invites casuals while pleasing FGC veterans.
Our review for 2XKO Early Access was conducted with the PC version, through the Riot Client.
The Highs
Succeeds at low floor, high ceiling
One of the signature design philosophies of Riot Games titles is stressing mainstream accessibility. Essentially they forgo the limitless depth of a DOTA or raw precision of a Counterstrike in exchange for a more welcoming entry point.
However, that wider door is typically accompanied by a respectably high ceiling. There is still always a massive gap between newcomers and the top levels of play.
2XKO follows that legacy in spades, offering a package that allows new players to jump in and start having fun right away while letting competitive players push the limits of their creativity.
At the lower levels, the Pulse option enables auto-combos that let beginners learn the flow of battle without needing to spend time in Training Mode. Additionally, there are no motion inputs like quarter circles, half-circles, and other variants like you'd find in other fighting games. Instead, "Specials" are executed with separate buttons for an experience that's much closer to Smash Bros than Street Fighter.
Toward higher levels, there are an incredible amount of nuanced mechanics to be aware of: many tag options, low and low parries, a chargeable heavy, super jumps, a combo breaker gauge that also becomes an X-factor, a retreating guard, the list goes on. Combo paths are nearly endless, and no two pros will play the same two characters the same way.
To tie it all together, the Fuse system allows noobs to learn while duoing with their more experienced friends. For example, you can equip the "Sidekick" option that makes it so your "point character" is the only one that goes into actual combat while the other character is purely used as an Assist character with empowered options.
Speaking of Fuses, the "Juggernaut" allows you to sacrifice a second character in favor of having one really strong one. This allows players who don't have time to invest into more than one character to still keep up and play.
Lastly, the matchmaking is quite strong and most matches will consistently pit you against someone that is within competitive striking range.
Great character design
Translating League of Legends champions into a tag-team fighter is no small feat, but 2XKO pulls it off with style. Every fighter feels authentic to their LoL counterpart while gaining the tools and expressiveness needed for a competitive fighting game.
If you're a League fan, you'll instantly recognize each champion's essence. Darius overwhelms his enemies with bleed, Illaoi spawns her tentacles, Jinx has her infamous arsenal and so on. Some characters like Teemo and Braum have had even more depth given to them with movesets that are pulled from other sources like Legends of Runeterra.
Each character feels distinct with exclusive mechanics and resource systems — no two characters play the same way nor fulfill the same niche
The other clear testament to the game's character design is how balanced the roster is. Yes, there have been some standouts like Yasuo and Ekko but for the most part, the balance of power is pretty reasonable.
Overall, whether you're a long-time fan of the IP, recently introduced through Arcane, or 2XKO is your first introduction to Runeterra, you can have faith in the quality of each character.
Excellent Netcode
With Tony Cannon, the creator of GGPO (Good Game Peace Out) as 2XKO's Tech Lead, it's no surprise that the game has excellent netcode.
If you're unfamiliar with the terminology, GGPO is a "rollback" system designed to make online matches feel nearly identical to offline ones by predicting inputs and correcting them in real time. Originally developed by Cannon in 2006, it has since become the backbone of modern fighting games and is now open source.
In our many hours of play, 2XKO’s implementation has been remarkably consistent. Matches feel smooth, with virtually no noticeable lag, choppiness, or unexpected disconnects. Streamers like Diaphone have been competing in EU tournaments while being based in America without much trouble.
Naturally, it's virtually impossible for an online match to attain the reliability of playing in person, but 2XKO has really met the challenge, especially for a fighting game that can have four players playing from different locations at once.
The Lows
Surprisingly small roster
As of writing this review, there are 171 champions in League of Legends. With this in mind, you would likely expect that the fighting game based off LoL would have a solid number of characters in its roster.
However, after all the years that 2XKO has been in development, only eleven are available to play in its Early Access roster. On top of that, the currently planned pace for new additions is at just five new champions per year. Katarina, who was teased in early Project L previews, has apparently been shelved for now.
This is a disappointing start, especially as a tag fighter that has four characters per match. It puts the game at risk of potentially getting stale down the road, especially if there are metas where certain characters are seeing significantly more play due to being overpowered.
We're hoping that the five per year projection is Riot under-promising to overdeliver later, they did surprise us with Warwick to pair alongside Teemo for the Early Access release day.
Visual clarity
Compared to other fighting game subgenres, tag fighters are, by nature, the most chaotic of the bunch due to having more characters involved than a typical 1v1. With an emphasis on more dynamic swapping and the option of repeat assists, 2XKO leans into it more than other tag fighters.
When both teams are firing at all cylinders, with projectiles, traps, and other animations filling the screen, it can be overwhelming to track all the action. This isn't something exclusive to just the beginner experience, even at higher levels of play you can get lost in the sauce.
That being said, a lot of this is clearly intended as many characters have mix up options to penetrate an opponent's defenses. For example, Ekko can recall to his Afterimage in an instant while Teemo can teleport to his bush. It's definitely a satisfying feeling when you discombobulate your enemies with well-timed tags and maneuvers.
Overall though, despite the double-edge blade nature of its intended design, we believe there are still some visual improvements that can be made to make the unintended moments of confusion more bearable.
Needs more polish
This is a symptom of the game's Early Access status but there are some rough edges that are clearly still in progress. The most notorious example is Vi's ultimate beating up an offscreen enemy because the animated versions that include the enemy on screen aren't in the game yet.
Other low points include the game struggling to detect controllers properly — we've ran into these issues across using fight sticks, controllers, and hitboxes. Most of the times they work, but sometimes the game gets confused between matches or defaults to your keyboard even though you've been using a different peripheral to play.
We know these growing pains will only improve in time, but they can be annoying when contrasted with the more refined areas of the game.
Note: There has been some backlash around the current price of cosmetics and bundles. However, we are leaving this out of our Lows section as the game is free-to-play and it ultimately doesn't affect gameplay. Whether or not it will be an effective business model remains to be seen.
Our Score
8.5/10 (Promising Start With a Lot of Room to Grow)
At Mobalytics, we have team members who have played basically very fighting game and genre you can imagine. 2D, 3D, tag, anime, platform, and even oddballs like Power Stone are among our all-time favorites.
2XKO scratches an itch for us that is both familiar and fresh, bridging the gaps between older classics with a potential new audience.
I mean come on, beyond having the Cannons onboard, you also have the likes of Marlinpie and Combofiend working on the game. Its dev team is unprecedently stacked.
Although the game's development has had its ups and downs with a spectrum of hope, hype, and hate from the community, we think that it will stand the test of time at its current rate (just please add more champions!).
