Riot Games has decided to take the route of slow but steady growth. Expanding methodically and very carefully, they’ve been tackling one genre at a time, trying to ensure success in each of their niches. Almost always achieving success and always delivering remarkable games, this strategy has allowed them not only to survive but to grow relentlessly over the years. And it seems that their next game on the horizon is already well established.
The next genre they’re going to tackle, as is well known, is the fighting-games genre. With a game called 2XKO, previously known by the much more easy-to-pronounce name, Project L, Riot Games promises a 2v2 team fighting game with characters from Runeterra—the League of Legends world.
The good news is, if you’re looking forward to playing the game, you won’t have to wait much longer. 2XKO will be playable for the first time in a public play-test for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PlayStation, and PC starting August 8th, and you can register for it already. The downside is that it’s limited to specific countries. To participate in this public alpha, you’ll need to be from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Japan, or Mexico. If you don’t reside in one of these territories, we’re afraid you won’t be able to participate in the public alpha.
After confirmation that streaming will be not just permitted but encouraged, at least it’ll be possible to enjoy the game using that mode for people outside those seven countries. In that trajectory, Riot wanted to make very clear that this is an alpha. 2XKO is nowhere near being a complete game. All the polish one would expect from a commercial, finished game is not present yet, so it’s to be expected that there are many parts still to be completed, and it must be accepted that this is a conceptual sample, not the final game.
We reserve the best news for last, which is that although not everyone will be able to play this alpha, it seems that there’s finally a date on the horizon when we’ll be able to do it. Riot has confirmed that 2XKO will be released sometime in 2025. Without a more specific timeframe—simply stating that it will arrive sometime during the year—and without specifying whether it’ll be in the form of an open beta, closed beta, or full release, at least one thing is clear: the game is moving towards its final stages of development. Which means that from now on, we should start to hear a lot of news about 2XKO.
