The director of 2XKO, the upcoming tag-team fighting game starring League of Legends heroes, wants the free-to-play title to be able to stand tall with genre giants like Street Fighter. That's a lofty goal, of course, but director Shaun Rivera is also aware that 2XKO will need more than League of Legend's brand recognition to "earn that spot."
Speaking to Edge Magazine's 215 issue, Rivera hoped that 2XKO could rub shoulders with Street Fighter and other EVO mainstays by the time the annual fighting game esports event rolls around next summer. He knows it's not an easy ask, though.
"We've got to earn that spot," Rivera told the magazine. "We've got to earn the right to be there from our players. Our team fully believes that. We've got to make a game that players love and believe in, and that is constantly getting better for them over time. Nothing is guaranteed, and so you better believe we'll work our butts off to try to get there."
Producer Tom Cannon previously revealed that the team actually went back to the drawing board after the spin-off's "awkward" reveal in 2019, though it was all in service of adding something new to the genre, rather than stuffing LoL characters into what looked like a Tekken or Mortal Kombat reskin.
2XKO is currently in Closed Beta on PC and, while there's no release date yet, it is set to launch in full on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PS5 sometime later this year.
