- Primary Subject: 2XKO Fighting Game
- Key Update: Riot Games ending development support for 2XKO
- Status: Ongoing
- Last Verified: 2026-08-21
- Quick Answer: We highlight the positive aspects of 2XKO, such as its Duos mode and netcode, despite Riot Games ceasing development support.
I loved the idea of 2XKO. I may not have been too fond of how the dev team executed those ideas, but to see it get the short end of the stick from Riot Games—ending development support by the end of the year—makes me quite sad.
There’s plenty to say about why the game failed. Everyone’s an armchair developer or a marketing expert trying to come up with a list of bullet points detailing what Riot did wrong and why the name 2XKO single-handedly tanked interest in a fighting game based on League of Legends characters.
Hindsight is always 20/20, and I’m quite fed up with the “gotchas” and “I told you so” posts flooding social media since it was revealed that the game wouldn’t live past 2026. Instead, I want to focus on shedding a more positive light on 2XKO and the many, many things it did right as my way of sending off the game.
Sure, 2XKO is not going anywhere, and it’ll still be playable for the foreseeable future. At the end of the day, if you find someone else to play a game with, that’s enough to build a community off of. But the sad truth is that its time in the limelight will be over once events like Evo France roll around and the final characters, Lux and Samira, drop.
2XKO Failed, But It Did a Lot of Things Right
As I said, I’m not interested in trying to dissect the death by a thousand cuts and cautionary tale that was 2XKO’s development. I did that back in February, when I wrapped up my thoughts with an unfortunately true prediction about the game’s fate.
Let’s move past that and celebrate the stuff that 2XKO did right. Starting with Duos.
Duos Made Me Love Fighting Games in a Casual Manner
Duos was such a novel, fun, and fresh take on tag fighters that made me enjoy fighting games in a way I hadn’t in quite some time.
I usually hyperfocus on being too competitive or achieving certain ranks, and I rarely get to stop and play for the fun of it. Out of my close to 1,300 hours in Street Fighter 6, less than two have been dedicated to Extreme Mode, for instance.
Duos brought me back to those days when I could simply log into a lobby with a few friends and really have an amazing time. Coming up with callouts for a burst or a tag, or desperately yelling for a pushblock, was genuinely refreshing. No longer was my relationship with fighting games boiled down to playing ranked, raging at terrible netcode, or hyperfocusing on improving. It helped bring the vibes of going to a local event to an online setting and was particularly great when duoing offline.
Unbelievably Perfect Rollback Netcode
Another incredible feature I want to commend 2XKO for is its netcode. After having a taste of it, I don’t want to be fed subpar netplay experiences. Yes, I’m looking at you, Marvel Tokon.
The Cannon brothers are absolute geniuses. I won’t pretend I know the technicalities behind 2XKO’s rollback implementation, but there was something magical about it: to have up to four players seamlessly enjoying a tag fighter with no hiccups, in a game optimized to a degree that let almost every PC user enjoy it, is phenomenal.
Sure, rollback netcode is the standard for fighting games, but not every rollback netcode is created equal. I thought it couldn’t get better than Street Fighter 6. Oh, I was very, very wrong.
Being Free Removed a Massive Entry Barrier
It’s hard to get people into fighting games, whether they’re 3D, 2D, or tag fighters. It’s even harder to ask them to fork out full price in many cases—not with 2XKO. The entry barrier was your willingness to give it a shot and try to, in good faith, give it an honest try. It was, and still is, completely free-to-play.
We can discuss the monetization system all you want, but at the end of the day, the worst you could lose for trying out 2XKO and coming to the conclusion it simply wasn’t for you was a little bit of your time.
The Fuse System
Fuses changed how you played the game in various ways. Some would let you tag more times; others would let you cancel one super into another to tag that Champion in. Those are the hypercompetitive-focused ones, but the real brilliance of the system, even if the balance was never really there at the highest level, was how much flexibility it provided for newcomers to enjoy the game casually.
There were times when I hopped into casual matches and rocked solo Caitlyn with the Juggernaut Fuse (only being able to use a single, buffed version of my selected Champion) just for the fun of it.
For Duos, the post-launch addition of Teamfight was such a godsend. Again, Riot was too scared of making it competitively viable, a thing that inevitably hurt the game’s optics in the eyes of casuals, but for those online sessions while gaming with your friends on Discord, it was the perfect way to blow off steam after deranking.
The PvE Roguelite Mode Was a Great Foundation
Added back in June alongside Senna and Thresh, The Climb was a brand-new way to enjoy 2XKO. The game solely lacked more content, and Riot adding a roguelite mode with very wacky modifiers, buffs, and bosses to fight was a concept I wish they had more time to explore.
The rewards were neat, with cool chromas acting as rewards. Had the devs had more time to cook, I can totally picture them turning The Climb into its main single-player mode, maybe even adding a bit of lore to it down the line.
What could’ve been.
I Did Enjoy The Lobby System
The fighting game community may be fed up with chibi-style character avatars or online lobbies that pretend to simulate the bygone era of arcades, but 2XKO’s lobbies were actually great.
Being able to set up a private room, have several setups, and smoothly transition from watching one match to another is something I yearn for other developers to pull off. You could quickly decide to go full screen or play around with different screen sizes, truly making you feel as if you were in an online arcade.
As I said, 2XKO isn’t going anywhere. If you, like me, still like the game, nothing will prevent us from booting it up down the line and enjoying casual matches with other dedicated players.
I hope I’ve inspired you to also try to take the positives out of a terrible situation and to keep supporting the game even if Riot itself turned its back on it.
And that’s it. Stick with us at Gfinityesports.com: your go-to source for all things fighting games.