2XKO'd: Skepticism Rising

I believe fighting games can be bigger than they currently are. I made a whole video about the idea. The elevator pitch was that fighting game developers had limited the reach of their genre through a decades-long series of unforced errors. I’m pretty convinced that if someone could make a fighting game that avoided those missteps, it could reach an audience an order of magnitude larger than any fighting game to date. I think some of the key boxes to tick are:

1. Rollback netcode. Good rollback netcode is what makes online play for fighting games function properly. Only very recently did this become the standard (games without rollback are rare these days).

2. Good UI/UX. Even though good implementations of rollback netcode are common now, fighting game devs continue to drop the ball on their user interface/user experience. Guilty Gear Strive’s terrible tower lobby system is the most obvious example of horrific UI/UX in a modern game, and sadly, it’s not alone.

3. Free to play (or some reasonable business model). I think something like Dota 2’s model would work well in a fighting game context (where all gameplay-related things are free and the only things costing actual money are purely cosmetic). I think you could also do something like the original Overwatch, where you do pay a fixed price for the game, but then you have access to new characters, maps, etc., as they’re released, and again, the only reason to spend money is on cosmetics.

4. One button special moves. I did a whole video about this as well, but the short version is that while I don’t think traditional special move inputs are difficult, a lot of people perceive them as difficult, so easier inputs can help folks get past that mental barrier. One button specials also make a game more easily playable on a variety of input devices, which widens your potential audience.

Points #1 and #2 are pretty widely acknowledged, but I think it’s important not to underestimate the impact of points #3 and #4 and how they work together. If your game is free to play, and you can play it properly with a standard keyboard/mouse, anybody with a computer is a potential player (at least as long as your game can run decently well on lower end systems).

Fighting game devs have finally come around on rollback, so the unforced error of poor netcode is (hopefully) a thing of the past. Good UI/UX is still elusive. Some devs seem to struggle with it (Arc System Works) while others are better (I think Capcom did a solid job with Street Fighter 6). However, traditional fighting game developers have been very reluctant to seriously consider either #3 or #4, despite the upside potential.

Riot’s 2XKO (formerly known as Project L) has been in the works for years at this point, and within the last year or two, they’ve started bringing it to fighting game tournaments for people to try out. As I type this, they’re running a closed beta test they’re calling Alpha Lab. I managed to get into Alpha Lab, so I've been playing the game over the past few days.

Ever since the game was announced, I was 99% certain they’d hit all four points I listed above. While some smaller indie titles (like Fantasy Strike) had also checked those boxes, 2XKO is the first one with both the IP strength and the budget to really test my hypothesis. Anyway, I think I’ve buried the lede enough—while I still firmly believe in the theoretical potential reach of traditional fighting games, 2XKO is not the game that’s going to realize it.

Hitting all four points is necessary but not sufficient. While extremely important, those four things are ultimately features that are attached to a game, and people have to want to play that game for any of that to matter. I’ve been extremely impressed that Street Fighter 6 has consistently had a 24-hour peak player count of ~25,000—that’s a massive success! I think plenty of people will play and enjoy 2XKO, but after sitting down with the game, I’m having a very hard time imagining it even sustaining SF6 numbers once it’s been out for a bit and the dust has settled.

2XKO’s Controls and “Easy” Special Moves

Here’s what 2XKO’s control scheme looks like (for now, at least):

There’s a lot going on here!

As expected, 2XKO has one button special moves, so all specials are performed by hitting a button (the Special 1 or Special 2 button), or one of those special move buttons plus a direction. Outside of special moves, you have light, medium, and heavy attack buttons, and in many cases, you do different moves depending on whether you press just the attack button or if you press the attack button plus a direction. 2XKO also allows you to call the character who’s tagged out to have them come in for an assist. This is performed by pressing either backward or forward plus the tag button, which lets you pick between their two available assists.

So you've got a lot of normals/specials that require a button plus a direction, and those inputs exist alongside assists that require that you press the tag button plus a specific direction. This makes it so you usually can't do a move while calling an assist simultaneously. This is something you do all the time in assist-based games, and it’s been driving me nuts for the entire beta.

Let’s look at an example (I’m going to use numpad notation): I'm playing Illaoi on point with Ahri tagged out. I'm doing a block string and decide I want to do 6+S2 with Illaoi on point while calling Ahri's back assist (4+T). Obviously it's impossible to press both left and right at the same time, so I need to do one of the two things first, and then wait a few frames and do the input for the other. I'd way rather just have two tag buttons with each one dedicated to one of the two available assists. They took great pains to avoid difficult inputs, but their solution makes many common things you’d like to do maddeningly difficult.

Another common downside of one button specials is that you end up needing more buttons than you would with traditional inputs. At minimum, you need six buttons to play 2XKO: light attack, medium attack, heavy attack, special 1, special 2, and the tag button. You can dash by pressing L+M at the same time, but it’s much easier to dash consistently with a dedicated dash button, so that’s a seventh button. You can parry by pressing L+H, but again, there are tangible benefits to having a dedicated parry macro, so that’s button number eight.

You have to use all of these buttons all of the time, so it becomes a lot to juggle. Contrast this with Marvel vs. Capcom 3, another assist-based game, where if you’re playing on stick or leverless, your index finger, middle finger, ring finger, and thumb can all comfortably rest on the four main action buttons (L, M, H, and S).

It’s not just me that feels this way—I’ve been seeing similar impressions all over social media:

I can see this being less of an issue if you play on pad specifically, but that seems less than ideal. One of the big benefits of simplified inputs is that they’re supposed to make your game more input device agnostic, so it seems strange to feel like I need to play on pad to be comfortable.

The System Mechanics of 2XKO are Complicated as Hell

If you follow that Alioune thread, he goes on to say:

I pretty much agree 100% with what he’s saying. Why is there both retreating guard and push block? Why does crouch block let you block mid attacks, but low parry doesn’t work against mid attacks? Why do you need to juggle all of these defensive mechanics to escape the game’s many oppressive pressure sequences? Other assist-based fighters tend to focus on blocking plus one main defensive mechanic that offense/defense revolves around (reflect in Dragon Ball FighterZ, push block in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, etc.)

In many ways, 2XKO is structured more like Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite or BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, where you play a team of two characters and can switch between them in a bunch of different ways. My experience in the beta so far is that the game can be immensely visually confusing. After calling an assist, you can switch to playing the assist character by tapping the tag button, so anytime an assist is called, you have to consider whether a character switch is coming. Something about how the camera focus changes between the characters during a tag adds to the confusion. I find it a much harder game to follow than more standard assist-based fighting games like DBFZ or Marvel vs. Capcom 2 or 3.

It’s also really easy to accidentally tag in your assist character. For example, let’s say I’m blocking a move and I want to call my assist right after I exit block stun. I press back plus tag to get my back assist, but then I realize I may have pressed it a bit early (while I was still blocking). You can’t call an assist while blocking, so I press back plus tag again. But then it turns out I actually didn’t press the first attempt too early, so that first assist call worked, and now my second attempt to call the assist has become me accidentally tagging in my assist character.

Duo Mode is Weird

Most fighting games are a single player vs. another single player. This has its pros and cons. You’d expect it to make online matchmaking easier than in team-based games, since you just have to match up two individual players (rather than trying to assemble and balance teams of multiple players of different skill levels). 

Some aspects of 1v1 can be taken as a pro or a con depending on your personal taste; whether you win or lose is 100% on you. I personally like this, but team-based games give you someone else to blame when you lose, and sometimes your team can carry you to victory, so you’ll get to see some wins regardless of your individual skill.

The biggest online games are team-based (let’s set aside battle royale games for now, since they’re kind of their own thing), so it makes some sense that fighting game devs continue to chase the dragon of team-based modes, hoping to unlock a larger potential audience for their game. 2XKO has duo mode, where you can play with another human player controlling the other character (rather than you just controlling all of your characters like in a traditional assist-based game). I’m skeptical that this is going to expand the audience of the game.

Whether a game is 1v1 or team-based, the vast majority of players will solo queue when playing online. In a 1v1 game, that means you’re playing games against opponents the matchmaking system finds for you (as opposed to arranging a match against a specific player beforehand and meeting up with them). In a team-based game, this means queuing up and letting the game find you a team to play with (and a team to play against, of course). 

How well this works in team-based games depends a lot on the design of the game itself. When you solo queue and just play on a team of random people, you’re almost certainly not going to be communicating with them. Most people won’t use voice chat. At best, people might type some random stuff in the chat (if you’re playing on PC, at least). This means that the team-based games best suited to solo queue are the ones where without any use of spoken or written language, you can coordinate and play with your team somewhat effectively.

Duo mode seems like it really requires you to play with a teammate who you specifically regularly practice with, and then you’d only play duos with that specific person, and you’d use voice chat to coordinate during the match. I have a strong feeling that the number of players who do this will be miniscule. 

I’ve seen people push back against criticism of the game by saying that playing duos solves whatever problem you’re having. I think this rings hollow because this is a mode most players won’t meaningfully engage with. If duos is the one true “correct” way to play the game, I think it’s going to be dead on arrival.

What I’d Want

I don’t expect this to happen, but I would be way more comfortable playing the game if there was an optional control scheme that was something like:

• Light attack

• Medium attack

• Heavy attack

• Assist 1

• Assist 2

Many of the inputs would stay the same (L+M could still be dash, M+H could still be throw, etc.) The main changes would be:

1. Specials would all be quarter circles plus an attack button. This would mean on a stick or leverless controller, you would have access to all of your normal and special moves without having to shift your hand position at all. Supers could be a quarter circle plus two attack buttons.

2. Assists would be done through pressing either the Assist 1 or Assist 2 buttons. This would mean you would not need any directional input to call an assist, and it would mean you could be doing whatever directional input you want while calling whichever assist you want. For example, you could walk forward while calling your back assist, or you could block while calling your forward assist.

3. Tagging in your other character (either through quick tag and handshake tag) could just be done by pressing the two assist buttons together. This way, you’d avoid accidentally tagging in your assist character like I described in my example earlier. Dynamic save (burst) and tag launcher could also be done with this same input.

I don’t realistically expect them to offer this as an option, but it’d be a lot more comfortable/intuitive (for me, at least). As it stands, I’m not sure who the game is really for. Their choice to go with one button specials makes it seem like they’re trying to get new players into the genre, but everything else about the design of the game seems 100% focused on satisfying existing fighting game enthusiasts. They’re sending mixed messages.

Final Thoughts

When any new fighting game comes out that I’m interested in, I know that the odds of me sticking with it for years and years is pretty low. I already have fighting games I love, and they aren’t going anywhere, so it takes something special to get me to permanently reallocate my fighting game time and play something new. 

Even if 2XKO is not a game that I end up sticking with, I’m still rooting for its success. I think a lot of older school fighting game devs will be watching closely. A successful 2XKO sends the message that free to play is a viable business model for fighting games. It sends a message that being transparent and communicative with your community matters. It sends a message that quality of life features like not having another player’s bad internet connection ruin my experience are worth implementing. I think if 2XKO doesn’t gain much traction, other devs will not learn these lessons and just stick to what they know and continue to play it safe.

Who knows though—while my gut feeling is that 2XKO is not going to light the world on fire, I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong about plenty of stuff before, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.