Olivia Richman is a seasoned esports journalist who has worked with Inven Global, Esports Illustrated, Esports.gg, and more. As an editor and writer at Esports Insider, she loves telling unique esports stories, especially within the FGC. When not working and gaming, Olivia loves collecting Kirby plush, eating sushi, and driving her cars at the track.
Image Credit: Tempusrob / Evo / X. I have never been a fan of 2XKO . I’ve made that pretty clear in my recent debate with my colleague over the survival of 2XKO. Hint: I said it won’t make it past 2027 . However, this was based on Riot’s shortcomings in the game’s launch and marketing strategy, as well as the dwindling number of players and viewers.
After attending Evo Vegas 2026, I have a different opinion. I am not really taking back anything I’ve already said about the game: I still don’t think it will retain a casual player base. But I think it may survive as an esport.
Ever since I played the demo of Riot’s 2v2 fighter at Evo Vegas 2025, I believed the game felt awful. As the developers themselves admitted, the game was overly complex. If you are new to the game without much of a competitive background, you essentially feel you are floundering around and that nothing you do leads to anything meaningful. That can feel very frustrating. And boring.
Most fighting games have realized the importance of bringing in new players. Street Fighter 6 introduced Modern Controls that require fewer inputs, and Tekken 8 has Special Style for simplified combos. These things allow new players to do less frustrated mashing and more impactful and satisfying moves.
“Fighting games require command inputs. You have to do it at the right time and right speed. That takes a lot of muscle memory, of course, fast reactions, fast planning. That’s something you grow as a skill. It’s not something you come out of the gate with,” Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves Producer Shinya Tamaki told me at Evo Vegas when I asked why fighting games are so focused on new players compared to games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2.
However, 2XKO doesn’t really have that. The development team behind 2XKO is full of super-involved and OG fighting game professionals who have been in the scene for a long time. While this made the game sound promising, it actually proved to be one of its flaws: the game heavily catered to players who already know how to play.
2XKO doesn’t have the wide appeal Riot had hoped for. The company admitted as much in February 2026, when it stated that the game “hasn’t reached the level” needed to keep the team together. This was followed by a huge round of layoffs . From the start, Riot wanted 2XKO to defy the usual fighting-game standards and achieve mainstream appeal, even relying on expensive skins as it does in other titles.
But it quickly learned that having League of Legends champions on the roster wasn’t enough to do that. It’s a fighting game, and a complex one at that.
I am still pretty confident that 2XKO will not really grow, especially not as other fighting games come out with multi-character rosters that are much easier to play and offer a more fluid fighting style. Invincible VS and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls are both a lot more beginner-friendly while still offering creative, high-IQ play.
However, I no longer think 2XKO is completely dead.
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