Tag fighters have been a staple of the fighting game genre for decades at this point. While many prefer to learn a single character and really mastering that character as well as their individual matchups there’s always a more hardcore genre of fighting game player that wants to shoot for two or even three characters simultaneously to learn. Games like the ever popular Marvel vs. Capcom series and King of Fighters series are team based fighting games of different flavors but they still appeal to that demographic. Of course, to accommodate this desire for more characters and more synergies the rosters on those games tend to be quite large (56 characters in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, 50 in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, 59 in King of Fighters XV) so of course some discourse will erupt when a team based fighter is going to launch with only 10 characters.
2XKO will be launching with 10 champions!
(via 2XKO Discord) pic.twitter.com/iBwE1Vz1hs
— 2XKO INTEL (@2XKOintel) March 28, 2025
Riot’s 2XKO has been getting closer and closer to its eventual release date sometime later this year. After being worked on for around 10 years, people had pretty high hopes for 2XKO. Fighting games are a genre that struggle with player retention, and the hope was that the undying League of Legends property would be able to maintain a steady playerbase. That may yet be the case, but hardcore fighting game players as well as League newcomers took one gander at the roster (which currently includes Yasuo, Ahri, Draven, Jinx, Braum, Illaoi, and Ekko) and began to lose hope. Only 10 characters isn’t much for a team game for the fighting game players, and with only 3 slots left there’s no way that all the fan favorites people wanted from League such Zed, Lee Sin, Kayn, Katarina, Garen, Jayce, Vi, etc. are going to make it into the initial roster.
Of course, there will always be DLC especially considering 2XKO is going to be a free to play game, but DLC takes time and a small base roster after 10 years of development doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. There are further issues with the game as well, sparking debates about accessibility in fighting games (again) but that’s a story for a different time.
