Stylish free-to-play fighting game from League of Legends dev gets update ahead of Alpha 2 play test

In case you've been out of the loop, 2XKO is an upcoming 2v2 fighting game currently in development at League of Legends developer, Riot Games. 2XKO features stylised 2.5D graphics, and players will do battle in 2v2 tag-team matches as characters from Arcane and League of Legends. On Friday (March 28), following a development update ahead of the Alpha Lab 2 play test, Riot Games hosted a Q&A session on the game's Discord, confirming a number of details about the upcoming Alpha Lab 2 gameplay and the game's expected state when it launches later in 2025. 

For starters, it was confirmed that the next play test will take place between April 18 and 20, and it will only be available to players in Brazil, Canada, and the USA. The Alpha Lab 2 play test will be available for Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S consoles. During the Q&A session, the game's director said the following regarding the number of playable characters at launch. 

We will have 10 playable champions at launch. We know it is a smaller number than you would expect, but when faced with a trade-off of including even more champions resulting in delaying the release date vs getting it into your hands sooner, we are excited about the latter.

The game's director, Shaun Rivera, went on to explain that more champions would be added after release, and as the game matured. 

"We also believe that experiencing these champions through solo/duo play via a number of different fuses provide a lot for folks to dig into early on. The fact that we are a live service game means that it will only get better from there via new champion releases and gameplay updates." 

At the time of writing, Riot Games has shown off gameplay footage of seven champions, but it seems as though the first time the other three champions will be playable is in the official launch later this year. Riot Games says that after the Alpha Lab 2, assuming no major setbacks, the 2XKO team will be working towards the full release instead of preparing for another play test. 

Current known 2XKO champions: 

• Ahri
• Ekko
• Yasuo
• Darius
• Illaoi
• Braum
• Jinx

One character that has been previously shown off by Riot Games is Katarina, although she was recently removed from the game. It is unclear if she will make a comeback by the time the game launches, but that is one possibility.