Following the October 2025 early access debut on PC, Riot is preparing to launch the fighting game 2XKO as a full release on both PC and consoles. An announcement trailer was published a few hours ago on YouTube by Riot but quickly went private, which means someone posted it beforehand. Still, even though it technically counts as a 'leak', it's the kind where the official source self-leaks the news in advance, and so can be considered accurate.
2XKO has been a long time coming. It all started after Radiant Entertainment, the studio that made Rising Thunder (as well as the city builder Stonehearth), was acquired by Riot in 2016. While that meant the cancellation of Rising Thunder, the founders, the Cannon brothers, quickly started working on a new fighting game under Riot.
That wasn't very surprising. Despite Stonehearth, the Cannon brothers were always more interested in fighting games than anything else; after all, they founded the Evolution Championship Series and also developed the GGPO middleware, which provided the rollback netcode technology now practically mandatory for any self-respecting fighting game with online functionality.
It took many years to get this new project running, though. The first confirmation that they were indeed working on a new fighting game came in August 2019, but it wasn't until August 2022 that fans got another major update, when the developers revealed that it would be a free-to-play title. The game's title, 2XKO, was only announced in February 2024. That's also when we learned the first actual details on the game, which is a 2v2 tag-team fighting game where players select two characters from Riot's League of Legends setting.
One champion starts as the "Point," while the other starts as the "Assist." Players can tag in and out to swap active fighters, creating a four-player arena. Active tagging lets you call in assists mid-combo to extend damage or set up mix-ups. Furthermore, tag-in timing is crucial to offensive flow.
In an attempt to improve accessibility to those who aren't well-versed in the genre, there are no traditional quarter-circle or dragon-punch motions in 2XKO; instead, champions use button combinations. Another key feature of the game is the Fuse system, a team-building customization mechanic (similar to League keystones) that grants abilities like back-to-back assist calling, increased damage at health advantage, or dual ultimates, allowing users to customize duo synergies and playstyles.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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