Half of the 2XKO Team Laid Off But Came With a Miracle

We have received word from Riot Games saying that they're going to lay half of the 2XKO team, just weeks after console launch. But thankfully, a miracle has came across. But what is the miracle for the 2XKO team and the game's development cycle? Well, let's jump right in.

I'm back with a new post and man, this post is gonna leave me satisfactory. After years of waiting, 2XKO is finally out on console with Season 1, Caltlyn, balance changes and a new Battle Pass. I started playing this game since Alpha Lab 1 that was the very first at home playtest. I didn't get an invite to Alpha Lab 2 since it was a small playtest. But I got my guaranteed invite to Closed Beta for playtesting on console. I am loving every second of it. The controls are decent, but sometimes clunky on certain characters, Duo Play became well liked, but need some improvements that I'll go over later on.

Frosty Faustings became a blast. We've seen some duo action and mixed format. Can you even believe how crazy it was? It was a crazy event, whether it's Caitlyn being legal, making all cosmetics unlocked by default in Offline Mode and even wondering if Illaoi is straight up Polynesian. Crazy event, but sadly, we didn't get an announcement as to revealing the character roadmap for this year.

So now, Riot posted on X about the important update regarding 2XKO. Tom Cannon has announced that they're going to lay off half of the 2XKO team, just weeks after launch and a week after Frosty Faustings. Well, that's just great. 2XKO launched and then, the team has suffered mass layoffs, even after a successful Frosty Faustings. This is not the way to celebrate its launch. That caused the X account to go silent for a little while. But thankfully, there is one miracle that came with it.

"With a smaller, focused team, we're going to dig in and make key improvements to the game, including some of the things we've already heard you asking. We'll share some of our plans soon."

"Our plans for the 2026 Competitive Series are unchanged. We remain committed to partnering with tournament organizers and local communities. Our focus will continue to be on supporting the events and organizers that already power the FGC."

"Ultimately, this decision reflects a shift in how we operate. This isn't a judgment on individual Rioters or a signal that the journey is over. We're reshaping the team to give 2XKO a more sustainable path forward."

There are so many words that produced a scintilla of relief. Tom said that 2XKO will stay alive with a leaner team and that they'll share plans for 2XKO soon after saying that the game resonated well with a passionate core audience, but momentum had not reached to that level needed to support a team long-term when it was that large. I don't get how the momentum hadn't reached to the level need to bring long-term support to a team.

He also added that energy matters and that will fuel them into the next chapter as they improve the game. With a leaner 2XKO team, they'll be able to make key improvements and guarantee its long-term success, which is the miracle it came with. That includes the things players been asking for. There are key improvements to be made, thanks to being a smaller and more focused team, so I decided to list couple improvements that Tom could be referring to.

Current and Future Skins With Built-in Finishers in Offline Mode

Current and future cosmetics were unlocked by default in Offline Mode and they look sick. We saw them how sick they are, but Offlne Mode lacks the ability to set finishers. Now, in Offline Mode, the finishers should built in with skins that come with them. It can make matches even more rewarding, especially in the competitive scene and with hyper combo finishes. This is since the 2026 Competitive Series are still being in play despite laying off the team.

Investing in Duo Play Even More Online

I know that Shaun's words about making duos easier to find, but he did not mention online. I decided to forward his words about investing in Duo Play even more. There are two things that would make duos much easier to find.

First off, matchmaking in different settings. Currently, we have mixed matchmaking, but when not in a duo, it doesn't assign you with a random player to duo with. But we can amp it up to make mixed matchmaking duo up with a random player. This makes duos much easier to find and form. And to amp it up even more, matchmaking settings of mixed, solo and duo. When not in a duo, mixed, solo and duo setting get available. But when in a duo with a player they invited, mixed and duo settings get available.

Now let's move on to another part, the Casual and Ranked lobbies to have the same treatment as the private lobbies. Private lobbies allow us to ready up for solo and wait until a partner comes to duo up with someone at the cabinet. Additionally, the Casual and Ranked lobbies should have the same treatment as private lobbies, with readying up for solo and waiting for a duo partner before readying up at the cabinet. This would also make duos easier to find and make it even more rewarding.

Custom Lobbies

Since Alpha Lab 1, private lobbies where introduced. Because they're private, we have to invite our friends to them. But I think we need custom lobbies. They can be made either public or private, like in other fighting games. But the only catch is that we can't earn Credits or grind missions on private lobbies, so I'll make this one the least important.

Non-Expirable Battle Pass

Marvel Rivals has a Battle Pass that never expires when a new season launches. Instead, it adds new cosmetics on each new season, making things easier. I think it can make the grinding a bit easier. I think a non-expirable Battle Pass could work in 2XKO. Just unlock the premium tier and that's it. You just grind the Battle Pass without worrying about that it'll expire.

Less Grinding

Now, this is something that fans have been wanting. When a character launches, they have a three-week long Recruitment Event that involves grinding 10,000 XP to unlock them for free and after three weeks is up, they get available for 10,000 Credits. It has been the problem. Grinding weekly and daily missions speeds up the process of unlocking every character, but waiting next week for new weekly missions makes grinding a bit extensive. To make grinding any less extensive, this can be fixed so that the Credits pricing can be lowered into something reasonable on not just characters, but stages and chromas also.

A Bigger Character Roster

In Alpha Lab 1, the game started out with six characters. A roster that small became a point of criticism. When the game comes out on console, the roster doubled to 12 characters. It's a bit better than having a smaller roster than what we have now. I'm inclined to agree that this needs to be improved, but it is unknown if the release cadence of five new characters per year is still in play since the layoffs. We will find out soon. After all, there are numerous characters that are just begging to be in the roster, including fan favorites like Akali, Azir, Ezreal, Ashe, Zed, Leona, Pantheon, Garen and even Sona, with desired characters like Katarina and Kennen to be coming soon.

This exposed why 2XKO had to start out with a small roster because the team had a large amount of people at the very beginning. That's why Riot had to lay off half of the team.

These are the improvements that Tom could be referring to. Riot laying off half of the 2XKO team may be a bummer for those who were laid off and I wish them the best of luck hoping they announce a new game for Riot, but Tom made it clear; because this move ensures a long-term sustainability, 2XKO is here to stay and it's set to have key improvements they're planning to make.

See, layoffs usually suck. The worst one among the game industry was Hi-Rez conducting massive layoffs to halt active development of SMITE 1 and Paladins to focus on developing SMITE 2. But Riot laying off half of the 2XKO team reshapes it to give 2XKO a sustainable path it deserves moving forward.

When the team was that large, they weren't able to take creative risks in the first place and there are some distractions. Bigger doesn't always mean better as they say. A leaner 2XKO team means a long-term sustainability, staying focused on developing the game without any distractions and taking creative risks, especially when there are key improvements they plan to make. We don't know what are their future plans for 2XKO and what key improvements they're going to make, but rest assured that because the 2026 Competitive Series is still alive and well, 2XKO is staying alive for the next chapter. It's not going anywhere.

But 2XKO is not the only fighting game to stay alive for the next chapter because Skullgirls is also staying alive for the next chapter that both Skullgirls and 2XKO kicked off their competitive scenes with Frosty Faustings and faced criticism about a small roster at the start. I have a post that talks about what happened, why Hidden Variable walked away from Skullgirls development and how is Skullgirls staying alive under Autumn. Here's the link if you're interested in reading more about it.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2025/11/sgs-new-chapter-is-big.html

What SEGA vs. Capcom Can Learn from 2XKO

2XKO came out really strong with a very large player base, thanks to the hype for the console release. It isn't just a fighting game. It is a very special tag-based fighting game that became a huge success, even in Season 1 where Caitlyn was introduced and she is kawaii and savage.

This means that if any developer can take a crack at developing a free-to-play tag fighting game, they must use 2XKO as a masterclass of a successful free-to-play fighting game. That includes one developer that is behind their fan game being Madxruler and their fan game, SEGA vs. Capcom: The Next Level. It is essentially a fan made vs. Capcom fighting game with characters from SEGA and Capcom's IPs. Tag team battles, Exceed feature and all that. It pretty much lives up to the Sonic vs. Mega Man thing. It is arguably one of the great fan games that is seemingly getting a Season 1 in July according to both trailers.

I realized why the game became ghosted before I go to a match. It's because I didn't had enough RAM that the game is memory-intensive. I had 8GB of RAM on that time. But I was able to upgrade my gaming computer to have more memory. 16GB RAM is okay, but 32GB is ideal while 64GB is overkill for pure modern gaming.

The Modern Setting

Many modern fighting games weren't hated because they have innovations. 2XKO is an innovative tag-team fighting game with multiple rounds, characters having their own super gauge, you get the picture. Currently, SEGA vs. Capcom takes place in the setting where it involves pressing any button to choose a character. But we can modernize that so that they can pick a character with the button that chooses a character, go back with the button that takes them back to the previous section and can change their controls. If they pick a character, they would be prompted to choose a palette. I believe that this can be done in the form of... Invincible VS?

But this just the first thing, so in this post, we're gonna go over the following things that 2XKO did that SEGA vs. Capcom: The Next Level can learn from.

Duo Play

2XKO introduced Duo Play, a feature that allows each player on their team to control their character. Solo is when a player controls both characters. When you go on a lobby, you would find someone to duo up with because there isn't a feature that allows players to randomly duo up with someone through matchmaking. The survey has that and I put that on top of the list of potential features because duos are way more fun than solos and we want to duo up with a random player through matchmaking and waiting for a partner on a cabinet, especially when we're grinding the First Steps missions.

In a post about how would they focus on shaping up 2XKO in 2026, Shaun Rivera has mentioned anything regarding Duo Play and his words about it were great ones.

"You've told us that playing as a duo offers an experience that's really unique and fun when you and a friend can team up and take on the world, and we agree--we're going to be investing in duo play much more: making duos easier to find and form, and making it more rewarding to play together."

There are so many words that piqued me. The guy literally said they intend to invest in Duo Play much more by making duos much easier to find. While there is no mentioning of online, what Shaun meant is that duoing up with a random player through matchmaking and waiting for a partner to duo up with someone on the cabinet on Casual and Ranked lobbies is coming to fruition. The "take on the world" phrase alludes to online play. The practice of making duos easier to find also applies to lifting restrictions from Ranked so that duos would be easier to find and we don't have to duo with a player through partner invites. This is something we've been asking for since Alpha Lab 1.

Since duos are gonna be easier to find, I think the Casual and Ranked lobbies could function similarly to private lobbies, with readying up for solo and waiting for a partner before readying up at the cabinet and matchmaking could come in multiple types, mixed, solo and duo types. If not in a duo with a player they invited, mixed, solo and duo matchmaking would be available for matchmaking. But in a duo with a player they invited, mixed and duo matchmaking would be available while solo matchmaking is unavailable until they are flying solo.

While SEGA vs. Capcom has four players on the Cross Fever game mode, I believe that this can be cranked up to eleven that it can have up to four players across multiplayer game modes, training mode and online play, have duo co-op on Arcade and Training Mode and follow 2XKO's footsteps so that each player can set up their controls and one player would choose Sonic as the point character and the other on the same team would choose X as the assist character and vice versa. This requires the role select screen to take place before choosing our characters in offline game modes.

Competitive Scene

Riot knocked it out of the park with their First Impact program that brings offline and online tournaments dedicated to 2XKO into the spotlight. The program became a hit and the game has unleashed its full potential on the competitive scene that it became a core backbone of the FGC. And now, Riot is set to offering direct support to existing local tournaments dedicated to 2XKO through the announced official yearly Competitve Series with monetary support, promotion on official Riot channels, buffs to prize pools and a format of having five major events and 15 challenger events, with Frosty Faustings XVIII being the first major event to kick things off and Battle Coliseum to be the "Super Bowl" of the 2XKO Competitive Series, making it a total of 20 events independently from 2XKO's ingame seasons.

And now that 2XKO is available on consoles, TOs will have to bring PS5s into venues where offline tournaments take place at going forward, starting at Frosty Faustings. And it won't just alleviate the technical issues when it comes to setting up controls, but make it so that the console versions would automatically be on offline mode when there is no Internet connection, also easier than launching the game on offline mode through the separate executable, especially since we can't launch the game on offline mode through the Riot Client while there is no Internet connection. With 2XKO chosen to be in the main lineup for Evo 2026, Evo Japan 2026 and Evo France 2026 as major events for the Competitive Series, 2026 is gonna be one heck of a year for 2XKO with esports action.

SEGA vs. Capcom was showcased at Combo Breaker 2025 as part of the Mystery Tournament, which is my favorite kind because it don't have to be limited to fighting games, but games with multiplayer as well. The part where SEGA vs. Capcom was showcased at Combo Breaker was met with widespread praise that it driven a lot of people to try this game out. And this can be amped up a bit so that the game can have its own tournament like others and can be showcased in multiple events. But since it's a fanmade game, it won't use the Competitive Series format that has 20 events divided by five seasons to have four events or have their own league. Instead, TOs can set up offline tournaments for this game if it's chosen.

Rollback Netcode and Lobbies

Rollback is a type of netcode that offers buttery smooth online play and predicts the inputs instead of waiting for the signal to hit it before a character's action. 2XKO offers rich rollback netcode and lobbies. Riot did online servers before having offline game modes in Closed Beta and they're looking to improve netplay in Early Access and beyond with new features, including the ones I saw on the survey. SEGA vs. Capcom already has netplay available and it can be amped up significantly so that it can have rollback netcode and casual and ranked lobbies that use dedicated servers so that there wouldn't be disconnects and Duo Play across online game modes. This gives players a smoother online experience and they can simply enjoy netplay without any problems and offers an amped up experience.

Attention to Detail

There is a LOT of attention that 2XKO has. When Alpha Lab 1 has concluded, they missed this game. When Alpha Lab 2 launched, a lot of people didn't get invited, including myself because it was a disappointingly small playtest. Closed Beta opened the gates to being a final invite-only play window that those who participated in Alpha Lab 1 or 2 will automatically gain access to the game, including console players, who would automatically gain access to the game on the Riot Client on PC.

SEGA vs. Capcom also has attention, but not as much as 2XKO. Deen and Noid played this game for their Father and Son Beatdown and it was showcased at Combo Breaker. My favorite part is the characters being locked out. Where it stands, Vyse and Morrigan are finished and the full trailer shows how finished they are, so go watch it. I know it's a fangame, but this game deserves a lot of attention when it was showcased at any offline tournament.

Character Archetypes

Fighting games in particular have characters that are unique by archetypes. The characters in 2XKO come with unique archetypes of some characters in 2XKO having the same playstyle as characters in other fighting games, like Teemo's rolling dash to indicate that Teemo is the Sonic in 2XKO with it and it serves as an innovative approach.

But remember that I said in the last post that there is one of the planned characters in SEGA vs. Capcom is going to have the same playstyle as Yasuo in 2XKO? Well, one of the planned characters in SEGA vs. Capcom is most likely to hypothetically have the same playstyle as Yasuo is Sakura Shinguji from Sakura Wars. But how would Sakura play similarly to Yasuo when she is finished? Well, she is a samurai of the cherry blossom and she is likely to be a mid range character and this is the dopamine rush the game needs. But we won't know if it's true or not until Vyse and Morrigan are finished. But we do know one thing for sure. Sakura is likely to come out in 2026 alongside Linn Kurosawa, whose development time takes the longest due to her being multiple characters in one and none of the characters in League of Legends are faithful to her performance when they debut to 2XKO.

But here's another thing. The 11th and 12th characters have been already confirmed to be in development. If they ask who do we think the 11th and 12th character would be, I have two characters that I think can do well.

First off, for the SEGA side, I say Gilius from Golden Axe. Now, Gilius is the main protagonist in the Golden Axe series on the successive SEGA Genesis. If our axe wielding warrior is confirmed, I think he'll likely to have the same playstyle as Darius. There's no other axe swinging character in 2XKO.

Now let's go on to the next character that is a Capcom character, Jon Talbain from Darkstalkers. Why Jon Talbain, the wolf in Darkstalkers, would be a great addition? Well, there is one obvious reason. Warwick. Vander became a wolf to be called Warwick. He became a decent and less annoying character to play against than Teemo. There is a fresh concept that if Jon comes to SEGA vs. Capcom, he'll be able to do well and come close to how well Warwick performed in 2XKO.

And since we got Caitlyn in 2XKO, I wonder if any of the SEGA or Capcom characters that are not in the game can have the same playstyle as her if they make it into the fan game? 

If we look at the old character select screen, the game started out with six characters when the game had its first at home playtest. These characters are available by default and newcomers have to grind enough Credits to unlock future characters beyond the first six characters. And when the game launches on console...

The roster has been doubled to 12 characters. That's a decent amount of characters in a tag fighter. You would know that the placement of character select screen nearly resembles Tekken Tag Tournament 2, with the random selection in the middle and the character portraits on each side, but slanted to give them an angle.

The roster containing a dozen characters is even and has Illaoi and Darius on the SEGA side to apply to Ooga Booga and Golden Axe and Caitlyn and Yasuo on the Capcom side to apply to the Alien vs. Predator arcade game developed by Capcom and Onimusha. But not for long because the 13th character is coming later in Season 1 since 2XKO is moving from having five seasons to three seasons as Riot learned based on how we play in Early Access, generally meaning that the second character of the year will fall within Season 1 with Caitlyn while the third and fourth characters of the year will fall within Season 2, following MultiVersus' footsteps on the first two seasons, and the final character of the year will launch at the start of Season 3, indicating that the annual release cadence of five new characters is still in play.

Instead of me telling you, let's take a look at what will happen to the placement of the character select screen if we get a 17th character in 2XKO. I went to MS Paint to draw the placement and my work has unfolded well. Let's get to the reenactment.

Now, if the 17th character launches in 2027, the portraits can be shrunk a bit to pave the way for more characters after the 16th character and have a third row. This makes it 36 characters, which will be the roster for 2030. This is what the placement of the character select screen should look like when the 17th character launches.

For fanciness, I colored the slots on the left side blue for SEGA and the slots on the right side yellow for Capcom. Now, this is important to remember that the fan game will have more characters.

Combo Trials

2XKO has introduced Combo Trials in Early Access. The game mode helps you learn combos for each character. They earn you credits and they are rewarding depending on the difficulty. I think SEGA vs. Capcom needs to have Combo Trials to help them learn combos. It's something that players must do. Learn combos.

Peripherals

There are a lot of peripherals 2XKO uses, like controllers and arcade sticks across most brands. That unlocked endless possibilities for players that prefer to use a controller or use a stick. SEGA vs. Capcom allows controllers, but this can be amped up a bit so that the game wouldn't be only playable on controllers that it can also allow the use of arcade sticks across most brands.

These are the things that SEGA vs. Capcom: The Next Level can learn from 2XKO so that it can be a phenomenonal game. But why is this important to talk about? That's a good question.

After I condensed the positive critic reviews on Metacritic, 2XKO became a critically phenomenal League of Legends fighting game. It became so phenomenal that it became universally liked, by both the players and the pros despite challenges like a initial 12-character roster that is small. Everything in Season 1 ranging from Caitlyn to balance changes for the whole cast to get everything prepared for competitive play and training while waiting for an opponent in Ranked ensured a strong growth the game has deserved so that it wouldn't have a lackluster launch.

Player First Games had a small chip on their shoulder on what happened with MultiVersus and why it had to be shut down early. What happened with MultiVersus, you ask? It's dishonoring the Open Beta with exploitative monetization mechanics, putting the game on hibernation and relaunching it with draconian changes and player dissatisfaction. That led to shutting down the game early after five seasons.

See, Riot is avoiding this practice. They knew that they need to honor the game's Alpha Lab playtests so that 2XKO would be a phenomenal game like it was in the Alpha Lab playtests. If you want to know more about how 2XKO changed everything and how it became a critically acclaimed and commercially successful game, you can click the link to the post that covers it all.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2026/01/2xko-has-changed-everything.html

2XKO Has Changed EVERYTHING

I think 2XKO has changed everything in the gaming industry. No. I'm dead serious. I think 2XKO has changed everything. Now, I know that this is a bold take. I know that some people would disagree. I know that one user would say that this game is butt cheeks and complain about how exploitative monetization is, but it's okay because I'm gonna highlight and explain how it changed everything from both the content and player experience perspective. Let's jump right in.

Still here? Good, because the first thing that some people are going to say is that 2XKO didn't change everything, but Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls will. In a way, yes, Marvel Tōkon's announcement during June's State of Play definetely brought the Marvel fighting game foundation back into the limelight. But not as a free-to-play title, but as a successor to the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise to become the new heart of the FGC set to release in 2026. They did host a tournament during the game's Closed Beta, and that's only the beginning.

See, we don't consider one-time purchases or Battle Passes as exploitative. No, the exploitative ones are a couple of examples.

First off, Spotlight Pipes in Mario Kart Tour is an obvious example of exploitative monetization mechanics that it became a continuous point of contention as a gacha mechanic. It's like lootboxes, but uses pipes to give you a random item. A young boy's father teamed up with his son and sued Nintendo together for implementing the gacha mechanic. It became a controversial piece to undermine player enjoyment and pressured players to pay money for Rubies, so Nintendo has removed it and replaced it with a normal shop that contains new and old content, including the ones players' don't own yet, and made Spotlight Pipes earnable for free, thus making monetization duller to attract existing and new players.

Pay-to-win scenarios involve items that they had to pay real money for to buy items that give the player an advantage over their opponent, creating an unfair advantage. This form is the source of alienating players and it was done by Paladins with its introduction of the notorious Cards Unbound in OB64, which was removed to win back players. It is possible to remove elements that introduced aggressive monetization tactics from a free-to-play game. While yes, free-to-play games have microtransactions, but as long as they are fair and less exploitative, it won't alienate a lot of fans.

One AAA company like Ubisoft claimed that microtransactions make their paid games fun, but I argue that they don't, especially when they are predatory. When they implemented microtransactions into a paid game, that's an issue as well. You must fight both the poor side of the player base that say full experiences are the best things ever and nothing can ever put extra purchases in it to the rich side of the player base that would be delighted to pay money on everything. Grabbing the interests of both sides of the player base is an extremely difficult practice.

And sadly, there is a company that took a crack of developing their free-to-play fighting game, but landed in a very awkward spot that makes it worse than a gacha mechanic and a pay-to-win scenario.

After the release of Sora from Kingdom Hearts in Smash Ultimate, WB Games brought on Player First Games and developed their free-to-play platform fighter with characters from Warner Bros' IPs, MultiVersus. So this game has made a brilliant entrance, being the renowned game on its time in Open Beta, ranging from setting up its tournament at Evo to winning Best Fighting Game at the Game Awards. However, as soon as the game relaunches after hibernation, things took a turn for the worse. The player base during full release did not come close to the renowned Open Beta did. After five seasons, the game gets shut down and delisted from the store.

How the game failed miserably is one possible explanation. And it's not shifting to Unreal Engine 5, releasing characters we didn't wish for like the Banana Guard or renaming Beetlejuice "Betelgeuse". No, the real source of MultiVersus' faiure and alienating a LOT of players is how monetization became exploitaive at launch.

When it comes to grinding, when MultiVersus relaunched, microtransactions were taken to the predatory level when they removed Gold, the game's free currency that is used to unlock characters, palettes and perks, to pressure players to pay money for Gleamium to unlock characters, palettes, lives and even low in rarity skins like the Friday the 13th mask, a shark head, possession with dark energy from Trigon, summer outfits, being imbued with the cosmic energy and more. The Fighter and Perk currencies they replaced Gold with, none of them can unlock palettes or low rarity time-limited skins or earnable through grinding daily and weekly missions or finishing matches. This form of exploitative monetization mechanics is called a pay-to-progress element.

WB Games couldn't maintain a great player base from the Beta, and even though they acquired Player First Games and Nevercake made an ad about the game and an explanation on how Rifts work, they still struggled with sustaining a decent player base. And even in the case of Season 4, there are dozens upon dozens of players alienated from playing the game due to even more exploitative monetization mechanics. This practice exposed why WB Games had to sunset the game after five Seasons and how it became a commercial failure. During the game's full release, WB Games has completely dropped the ball by taking microtransactions too far. That ball is the game's success in Open Beta.

The key takeaway here is that Gold, MultiVersus' free currency in the Beta, right? The key takeaway here is that Gold was implemented from the get-go of the game's development. It's the only thing that made MultiVersus so renowned and successful during the Beta. When Gold was removed and replaced with new currencies that can't be earned through finishing matches or used to unlock low tier skins at launch after hibernation, Player First Games has dishonored the game's Beta by implementing pay-to-progress scenarios. As it turned out, it wasn't just MultiVersus that became a commercial failure, but Supervive as well, the MOBA and battle royale hybrid game as well; also a commercial failure at launch and apparently, it's not microtransactions that caused it. It's the system that is not pay-to-win, but made grinding a pain.

I find it ironic that Mightykeef, a black comedian, would make an emotional skit to cover that, with Nintendo reacting to MultiVersus shutting down and to be honest, I expected that to drop because of the Harry Potter part and the, "I'm gonna need you to never do that **** again, my boy" line and boy howdy, that one was just... a rude thing for him to say, but didn't even use "pal" or "this means."

What is also funny to me is that when MultiVersus comes out, Nintendo became so jealous that Warner Bros. is trying to claim everything that they built just by beating 89 characters, which is the number of characters Smash Ultimate has, especially when it's multi-platform and has rollback netcode Smash Ultimate didn't have, to try to become the new lead company of a platform fighter. However, it has stopped at the same number of characters Brawl has being 35 characters and couldn't beat Smash Ultimate's 89-character roster. It fell short by 54 characters because the game had to be sunset. It's not even close to the number of characters Smash Ultimate has.

See, Harry Potter is not in the game and he never will be because since Warner Bros. is shifting their business to bringing their collaborations to Fortnite, generally meaning that the characters from their IPs are gonna be used as skins, and Player First Games is shut down, MultiVersus will never again see the light of day and these characters I wished for will be used as skins in Fortnite. It's bad enough that Crash Team Rumble prematurely ceased active development after three seasons, but at least it's not sunset, though.

This just tells me that Player First Games didn't just priortize monetization. They are also tone-deaf, acting like little children and jamming their ears and screaming, "La la la, I'm not listening!" as players deliver feedback to them, and used microtransactions as an excuse to make a decision to shut down their game after five seasons like weaklings. Seriously, seeing that the game is going to shut down makes me want to say, "No! Please don't shut down the game! I'm begging you!" or grab a 2x4 and smash myself in the head with it multiple times. There are a lot of characters I wanted and it's not happening. Godzilla, Daffy Duck, Furiosa and even Barbie will never make it to the roster, with Batman, Superman and a host of others in the roster.

It's great that it remained playable offline since it's a free-to-play fighting game, but still, I had to share this to explain how upset I am about MultiVersus shutting down after five seasons. Just because it has pervasive microtransactions, so what? Other companies made microtransactions less pervasive and removed elements that were the source of backlash and alienating players.zEvil Mojo removed Cards Unbound from Paladins, Riot brought back free Hextech Chests in League of Legends following backlash with the intention of making calls to boycott the game, and NetEase made microtransactions fair in Marvel Rivals to win back players, so why can't Player First Games follow the footsteps of other developers instead of shutting down the game?

Warner Bros. wants to invest their resources in bringing their IPs to Fortnite as skins and it's working. Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, Adventure Time, Scooby Doo!, DC and even Steven Universe made their debut, with other IPs like Harry Potter and Game of Thrones to be coming to Fortnite soon. They also want to focus on investing their money to core franchises. If WB Games wants to invest their money, just pass it on to a different developer to keep MultiVersus alive instead of darn near shutting it down after five seasons. Heck, they could pass it on to NetherRealm Studios to revive the game and they got Injustice 3 in the works. Now, it might be MultiVersus 2. I'm not ruling that possibility out. But in terms of telling my friends about how upset I am about this, don't make that a big deal.

The Metacritic score for MultiVersus is a 75 out of 100 based on a total of 36 critic reviews across three platforms, making this game generally favorable to be met with positivity. It was posted when the game comes into Open Beta. Even with microtransactions during full release, the game was not universally hated. The decision to end all further support on the game was met with widespread disappointment and sadness, especially when they purchased the third tier of the Founder's Pack that offers a number of character tickets that is overkill. In fact, for a lot of people, that was their favorite game and they made a petition to convince Warner Bros. to continue support on the game.

You can't put the game into the Beta phase with the free currency and replace it with new currencies that have limited ways to earn them and can't be used to buy low rarity skins at launch to provide predatory monetization tactics to alienate a lot of players. That's the only thing that has ruined what could've been a phenomenal crossover platform fighter like it was in the Beta that was better, especially when it's being multi-platform with seamless features outside the Nintendo line of consoles and having rollback netcode. Gold being the free currency is what made MultiVersus so phenomenal in the Beta.

When it comes to making a free-to-play fighting game, how do you develop a free-to-play fighting game that caters the best experience while also not alienating players? Well, Riot has laser-focused in on what made the Alpha Lab playtests so appealing. They taken that full potential from the Alpha Labs and amplified and multiplied it instead of breaking it by implementing aggressive monetization mechanics. Bringing new ways to earn Credits can take that full potential from the Alpha Lab playtests and make it shine when the game launches on console.

What I said above stated that again, Riot has laser-focused in on what made the Alpha Lab playtests so appealing. And instead of fragmenting and borderline priortizing monetization, they polished and multiplied what made the Alpha Lab playtests so appealing to a broader audience. New ways to earn Credits like combo trials would take that full potential from the Alpha Lab playtests and make it shine, so marketing-wise, they honored the Alpha Lab playtests with one butt to kick. However, now that they sort of alienated some of the people who are still fans of MultiVersus even during full release, but this is where the story kind of fixes that.

Riot has listened to the players' feedback during the course of the Alpha Lab playtests and embraced that trope that has been used in recent media. That made players very satisfied with how the developers were able to listen to players so that it can be the best it can be.

Also, if you don't know what Credits is, I'll explain what it is. Credits is 2XKO's free currency that is used to unlock Champions, chromas, stages and avatar cosmetics and has all ways to earn them for free, like finishing matches in Casual and Ranked lobbies, completing the lessons in Tutorial and grinding daily and weekly missions. Riot has thought about the predatory monetization tactics WB Games has implemented to produce pay-to-progress scenarios that alienated a lot of players during the game's full release and went the extra mile to improve how Credits are earned by adding new ways to earn them like completing combo trials.

Plus, to give you a small insight on how new Champions and stages become available to purchase with Credits, starting in Season 1, new Champions become available to unlock with 10,000 Credits once their first three weeks is up while new stages become available to unlock with 7,500 Credits when the Season is up, indicating that we can unlock new characters and stages without ever being pressured to pay real money. Grinding weekly and daily missions and finishing combo trials would speed up the process of unlocking every character and stage before the Season is up.

Implying that this free practice is gonna make 2XKO so appealing, thinking about that one form of a pay-to-progress scenario Player First Games put into MultiVersus to dishonor the Beta at launch and made monetization fair in 2XKO. And that one detailed form of a pay-to-progress scenario is removing the free currency and pressuring players to pay money for premium currency to unlock characters, time-limited rare and uncommon skins and palettes when none of the new currencies that replaced the free currency with are earned through grinding weekly and daily missions and finishing matches or can be used to unlock rare and uncommon skins.

See, Riot didn't just honor the game's Alpha Lab playtests. They also honored the concept of the game's full potential so much that it became a core backbone of the FGC. They even went as far as making balance changes to the whole cast to get everything prepared for for competitive play at Frosty Faustings XVIII to be the kickoff event for the 2026 Competitive Series and even making me wonder if Illaoi is straight up Hawaiian since Yasuo is Japanese, which she is, courtesy of Ooga Booga, the Dreamcast game that is a Hawaiian game to apply to her being on the SEGA side at the moment.

But how did it perform in practice? According to 2XKO's Metacritic, with the most reviews on the PS5 version and comparing it to the average review score of MultiVersus, which you already know that it's a 75 out of 100 across three platforms, 2XKO has scored a 79 out of 100 on the PS5 version based on eight reviews. And the highest Metacritic score is an 81 out of 100 based on five critic reviews for the PC version. And the overall score based on a total of 13 critic reviews is an 80 out of 100, indicating that 2XKO is the phenomenal free-to-play fighting game, so critically, this game is perfectly on par with the Alpha Lab playtests at launch. However, the Metacritic score for the Xbox version is not yet determined as there are no reviews for it, but nevertheless, a score of 80 based on is really great if you catch my drift.

With everything said and done, here's the main point I would like to make. There are some companies that try to figure out how to make a free-to-play live service fighting game that continues its success from the Beta, a platform fighter or a tag-fighter. WB Games made their free-to-play fighting game that is a platform fighter with their IPs battling each other. It became a success and achieved its full potential in the Beta. However, when the game was fully released, that full potential from the Beta was broken because they dishonored the Beta with priortizing monetization and ignoring players' feedback given during the Beta, which became the leading downfall.

But thankfully, Riot has learned from this enigma. They made a free-to-play fighting game that continued its success from the Alpha Lab playtests, by leaving the free currency alone and adding new ways to earn them and listening to the players' feedback, meaning that now, they have the blueprints of a commercially and critically successful free-to-play fighting game.

Development and content choices to create future free-to-play fighting games, meaning that if and when a free-to-play platform fighter goes into production, they now know how to learn from MultiVersus' commercial failure and untapped potential and make a successful free-to-play fighting game. They can simply copy and paste the coding and physics from the game's Beta and launch the game from there. They don't have to retool it from the ground up. The game's free currency is already done and how the Beta in MultiVersus was so appealing.

Not only that. Riot has went the extra mile to make 2XKO worthy of unleashing its full potential in the FGC and in the competitive scene and opened up to limitless creativity, meaning that if other companies behind their free-to-play games like Hi-Rez, Blizzard or any other company plans to develop a free-to-play live service fighting game, they'll be able to learn from MultiVersus' commercial failure and not make microtransactions predatory so that their game would succeed commercially. They can use 2XKO as a leading example of a commercially successful free-to-play live service fighting game still having that free currency implemented from the get-go.

Because of the reasons alone, I think 2XKO has literally changed everything in the game industry, by being a free-to-play live service fighting game that has the free currency from the Beta. MultiVersus' commercial failure came from priortizing monetization at launch to dishonor the Beta. It became a lesson learned by the other companies of the game industry. The first company that learned from it is Riot Games with the entry of 2XKO being a commercially successful free-to-play fighting game that honored its Beta with leaving the free currency alone.

Now, this is important to remember that 2XKO's commercial and critical success is to train other companies on how to make successful free-to-play fighting games. They can take what they learn from Riot and apply it to future games and sustain the decent levels of marketing hype experienced in the Beta.

And to make the news even better, there is an indie tag fighter that is basically an "indie" 2XKO with characters from various Saturday AM titles. I have a post that talks about it. If you're interested in reading it, here's the link.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2026/01/saturday-am-battle-manga-indie-2xko-in.html

Saturday AM: Battle Manga - An Indie 2XKO in Developement?!

So, we came across something in the indie game department. It's seemingly an indie 2v2 tag fighter that is an "indie" 2XKO, but with characters from Saturday AM titles. Let's jump right in.

Before I begin, I want to say Happy New Year to each and every one of you. We closed out 2025 and rang in 2026 very strong. Here's to another great year.

But today, I want to mention now is something I came across is the new indie 2v2 tag fighter that is, in a sense, an indie 2XKO. That's right, an indie 2XKO. Son Studios has started development of their 2v2 crossover tag fighter, Saturday AM: Battle Manga. It is a 2v2 tag fighter that features a diverse roster of characters from various Saturday AM titles like Apple Black, Clock Striker, Hammer, Soul Beat and many more.

Right off the bat, the trailer opens up with Saturday AM manga dropping. As we ripped through the trailer, we saw the dramatic zoom when a launcher and a grounder land like in Dragon Ball FighterZ. The game's development cycle starts out with the first four characters being Sano from Apple Black, Cast from Clock Striker, Stud from Hammer and Dante from Soul Beat.

The trailer showcased its gorgeous visuals. We saw words pop up in game. That's because of having visuals taken from the English-written manga that is produced in the United States, not in Japan, meaning that they will have fully voiced English VO according to the hub on Steam. In fact, these visuals and the gameplay are so dang gorgeous that they resemble the art style and cel shading from Guilty Gear Xrd that is the start of bringing its visuals and art style to future fighting games. Just look at the visuals here. We also saw Cast kicking some butt with her gauntlet.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised that Cast would be inspired by Vi and Ekko down the line. I mean, she is quote unquote black and scrappy like Ekko. I think that's something that Ezreal could have if he ever comes to 2XKO. The trailer ends with telling us that the game's demo is coming soon, so we'll have to wait and find out when we're gonna play this 2XKO-esque indie 2v2 crossover tag fighter and its demo.

We seen crossover fighting games and they're are always so magical, especially in the case of BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle. However, nothing has ever got as popular as it did with Guilty Gear Strive. Even so, we lost our crossover fighting game with Shonen Jump characters because the game's quality became dull. Thankfully, the one crossover fighting game we're getting is being developed by an indie dev. There are two reasons why this game is being developed by an indie developer and why it's a good thing.

The first reason is to have less money. They tend to avoid providing microtransactions and have their games reasonably priced so that players wouldn't spend extra money on a game they already purchased or spend $70 games.

The second reason is so that devs can have the freedom to develop this game however they wish and however they want. Without the constraints of a AAA studio, they can be able to take creative risks to bring unique innovations to this game like making it have up to four players to provide Duo Play on both offline and online to make it truly an indie 2XKO with Saturday AM characters.

I think what's really cool is that since Cast is inspired by Ekko and Vi because of the gauntlets and being scrappy, we can see future characters that could be inspired by the characters in the current roster in 2XKO, like Darius, Ahri, Warwick, Blitzcrank, Jinx, Illaoi and even Caitlyn Kiramman, which would also be cool for one of the Saturday AM characters that wields a rifle and a pistol that fires a bola, something that Caitlyn never has in League of Legends as it's an innovative approach. And Katarina, though she is not in the roster yet, but she is confirmed though. It's Sofdec and ADX being integrated into it. But one character that uses a hammer is Stud from Hammer, and if Poppy comes to 2XKO, she'll take some of the playstyle from Stud.

Since Evo 2026 is in order, the developers who are developing this game could attend there to give us a development update regarding it and possibly revealing new characters during Friday's Evo Showcase. We saw updates for a bunch of fighting games in the Evo Showcase, so Battle Manga could be showcased there in Evo. See, Evo is the E3 for fighting games that became the source of the ever-thriving FGC. In fact, it's the summertime Christmas for fighting game fans across the globe that provides fighting game news, reveals, demos and booths for games that are not out yet.

But the demo version of Saturday AM: Battle Manga is not the only thing that is coming in 2026 because a lot of things are also coming in 2026 and I have the post that talks about it. If you're interested in seeing what is on the docket for us fighting game fans in 2026, here's the link below. Have a happy 2026, everyone.

https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2025/12/2026-is-big-for-fighting-games.html

2026 is BIG for Fighting Games

2026 is set to become a big year for fighting games and the whole FGC. And because we got a handful of things coming on the docket for fighting games, 2026 is going to be one heck of a year for fighting games. So today, I'm gonna be talking about how 2026 is going to be a big year for fighting games.

Before we talk about what several things are coming in 2026, we need to talk about something good has happened in 2025 when it comes to fighting games. Tekken 3 has launched into the classics catalog on the PS4 and PS5. It was the final game to ever release on the PS3 before Bandai Namco moved on with the series to produce games on the PS2. It is indeed one of the classic fighting games I have played back in the day. Then Soul Calibur III came along, another classic fighting game I played back in the day and the first PS2 fighting game to come to the catalog. These threequels were the games I wished for and that met with excitement among the FGC that they want to revisit these games. These games are now available on the classics catalog, so go check it out.

Now let's move on to something interesting. It's about the two fighting games, Street Fighter 6 and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. What is so special about them? Well, there are four popular characters, Ken Masters, Chun-Li, Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui. So these characters have became guest stars in both respective games and they are available now on the store. With these characters, a fan demand for a new Capcom vs. SNK is very high and we could see it announced any day.

With that out of the way, we can now talk about exciting things coming in 2026 for fighting games. Now, I know that everyone's initial reaction would think that I'm gonna start with Skullgirls. But it's gonna be later on in this post because I need to talk about the bigger stuff first.

Back in June's State of Play, Sony has announced the upcoming new fighting game being developed by Arc System Works, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls. This is an innovative 4v4 tag fighter that features characters from Marvel Comics. Arc System Works had brought the Marvel fighting game foundation back into the limelight following Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite's poor reception and sales that had soured the relationship between both companies. Then the series has went on a hiatus for over eight years and we've been begging for a new Marvel vs. Capcom or a new Marvel fighter until Arc System Works has fulfilled our wish and took the mantle of developing a new Marvel fighter being Marvel Tokon: Fighting Sōuls.

While Marvel Tōkon is a 4v4 tag fighter, the four members of each team share with one health bar and uses multiple rounds unlike others where multiple teammates have their own health bar. But no new characters beyond the first eight characters were announced this year. However, there aren't any news for Marvel Tōkon at the Game Awards and no firm release date was announced yet.

These statements were cranked up when the second Closed Beta was announced to actually have Spider-Man and Ghost Rider in the roster with other characters. Since Sony announced that 2026 is gonna be big and they're going to bring in new characters beyond the first eight, including their all-time favorites, there are requests for Venom, Wolverine, Deadpool, the Punisher, Psylocke, Hulk, Luna Snow, and well, probably the loudest of them all, Emma Frost. These characters are great and I would like to see them. Who knows? Maybe these characters can potentially make their debut.

And do you know what else is coming out in 2026? Invincible VS. It is an upcoming 3v3 tag fighter that features a handful of Invincible characters intended for mature audiences due to it being an M-rated game because of the gore and frequent swearing at a severe level, living up to the fact that the comic book series and its animated series are meant for adults. The game had its Closed Beta couple weeks ago and launching in April with a launch roster of 18 characters, with more characters to come.

You know Marvel vs. Capcom 3, right? Well, it's anything like that. It uses 3D models and has 3v3 tag battles, air combos and a four-button control scheme. But the only difference is that the since it's an M-rated Marvel vs. Capcom 3-esque 3v3 tag fighter, there is a ton of blood and gore in it and uses lv. 3 supers that mutilate and dismember opponents' body parts when their HP is at 0. They are similar to Mortal Kombat X's Brutalities, but flashier. So basically, you can't play Invincible VS when you're not of age since it's an M-rated game, living up to the fact that Invincible is only appropriate for mature audiences. That's what the "MAY CONTAIN CONTENT INAPPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN" warning is for.

Marvel Tōkon and Invincible VS coming out in 2026 comes with the 2026 Competitive Series and the full launch for Riot's free-to-play fighting game, 2XKO.

2XKO is essentially the first tag team fighting game based on a particular universe; Fuses, Duo Play, Sega vs. Capcom-style of action and League of Legends characters.

Ever since Closed Beta, the competitive scene for 2XKO has grown and unleashed its full potential that Riot has even went the extra mile to bring online and offline events into the spotlight with the First Impact program, coming to a close. To push the competitive scene even further, Riot is bringing direct support to 20 offline tournaments, divided by five seasons tied to 2XKO's ingame seasons sporting four events on each season, with one major and three challenger events through the 2026 Competitive Series.

Since 2XKO is launching on console in January, basically meaning that 2XKO will be officially released on PC and console beyond PC Early Access in January, that's where they come in to bring PS5s into offline events going forward. The first major event is Frosty Faustings XVIII to kick off the Competitive Series with 12 characters in Season 1, including Caitlyn, who will be legal from the get-go in Frosty Faustings and is one of the characters I have theorized. While their experience is most definetely an issue, it's actually great news that we're getting Caitlyn before Katarina. I am so eager to find out what will our rifle wielding chick's gameplay look like in 2XKO since she's a Marksman in League of Legends anyway. Yeah, move aside, Erron Black, we have a new sheriff in town. Wow, so banter.

However, her trailer and moveset showcase are likely to drop in the week of January 12 to be a week before 2XKO's console launch, so we just have to wait and find out how will our renowned sheriff perform in a fighting game.

Riot has released the console trailer. Then it was immediately put on private after fans spotted the release date for when 2XKO is officially launching on PC and console. So, Riot, why are you putting the trailer on private all of a sudden? Was there something we weren't supposed to see?

Fortunately, before it was put on private, Knoebel first spotted the leaked console and trailer art, with Gematsu confirming the shift to being multiplatform after Riot immediately put the trailer in private. The art with 11 characters that are launch characters in Early Access shows that 2XKO will leave Early Access on PC and officially launch on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S January 20, looking at the remaining time on Season 0. Since Early Access won't involve any more progress resets, our progress we made on PC during Early Access will be kept when the game officially launches on console, meaning that we don't have to worry about our progress being reset when switching to console unlike in Closed Beta where our progress we made on that window had to be reset that it was just a warmup phase. This art has something we're not supposed to see, the official release date for 2XKO being January 20th.

Riot could've just at least published the console trailer with the redacted release date then unredacted it when the time comes. When there are a lot of fans just excited for 2XKO coming to consoles on that day when they watched the trailer, Riot had to put the video on private without an explanation, like nothing happened. I think the reasoning for putting the console trailer on private is because they must have accidentally uploaded it a bit too early.

There is something exciting regarding the Competitive Series, but before we get to that, let's talk about only summertime Christmas for the FGC, Evolution Championship Series, or Evo for short. For years, Evo has become the most prestigious fighting game tournament. But Evo is more than just tournaments. It's also about showcases, booths for unreleased games, reveals. cosplays, art stations and demos, being the E3 of fighting games and the summertime Christmas for the FGC. Back in the day, they had nine games in the lineup, until in 2023 when they had eight games in the lineup. The event has cranked up when there are 12 games in one lineup in not just Evo 2026, but also Evo Japan 2026.

Here's a look at the lineups for both Evo Las Vegas 2026 and Evo Japan 2026. Both events are having 12 games in one lineup to have 12 champions to crown, the first time and the biggest step up since Evo 2023 when it had eight games in the lineup. I'm gonna take both lineups for Evo 2026 and Evo Japan 2026 and decipher the games across the board. Since there are a dozen games on both events, it'll have the top six games with the most amount of signups being played in the arena where Top 8 takes place and the bottom six games with the least amount of signups being played outside of the arena during Top 8 in Evo 2026.

Both of these lineups are having 12 games that BlazBlue: Central Fiction being in the Evo 2026 lineup piggybacked off wanting BBTAG so that we can see the 3.0 Character Pack or BBTAG 2, KOF XV and Melty Blood: Type Lumina made the cut in the Evo Japan 2026 lineup and both events have a free-to-play fighting game like 2XKO and they need to have Capcom Fighting Collection 1 to get Vampire Savior ready. It's faster than setting up the arcade cabinet. Let's get to deciphering the lineups. We'll start with the games that are in both events.

Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Guilty Gear Strive, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, Under Night In-Birth II: Sys:Celes and Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising are in both lineups as returning faces. The new faces in both events are Virtua Fighter 5 REVO: World Stage, Vampire Savior and 2XKO. Trust me, this is important to understand that since Vampire Savior is in both events, they need to boot up Capcom Fighting Collection 1. It's faster than setting up the arcade cabinet for this game.

Now for the games that are in one event. BlazBlue: Central Fiction is the only returning game being played in Evo while KOF XV and Melty Blood: Type Lumina are the returning games being played in Evo Japan. Invincible VS and Rivals of Aether II are the new games being played in Evo while Hokuto no Ken, means Fist of the North Star in Japanese, is the only new game being played in Evo Japan.

Games in both Evo events:

Street Fighter 6
Tekken 8
Guilty Gear Strive
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising
Under Night In-Birth II: Sys:Celes
Virtua Fighter 5 REVO: World Stage
Vampire Savior
2XKO

Games in one Evo event:

BlazBlue: Central Fiction (Evo 2026)
Rivals of Aether II (Evo 2026)
Invincible VS (Evo 2026)
Melty Blood: Type Lumina (Evo Japan 2026)
King of Fighters XV (Evo Japan 2026)
Hokuto no Ken (Evo Japan 2026)

Returning games:

Street Fighter 6 (Both)
Tekken 8 (Both)
Guilty Gear Strive (Both)
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (Both)
Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising (Both)
Under Night In-Birth II: Sys:Celes (Both)
BlazBlue: Central Fiction (Evo 2026)
Melty Blood: Type Lumina (Evo Japan 2026)
King of Fighters XV (Evo Japan 2026)

New games:

Virtua Fighter 5 REVO: World Stage (Both)
Vampire Savior (Both)
Rivals of Aether II (Evo 2026)
Invincible VS. (Evo 2026)
2XKO (Both)
Hokuto no Ken (Evo Japan 2026)

So we now have the games listed separately to have a clarification of which of these games are in both Evo events, in one Evo event, returning and new games, making it 15 different games being played in Evo 2026 and Evo Japan 2026 without a subjective listing. I am quite surprised that Marvel Tōkon isn't in any of the Evo events. It's because the firm release date has not been announced yet. Since both Evo and Evo Japan are gonna have a dozen games in the lineup, can Evo France have a dozen games in its lineup too? We will find out.

Now we can get to the exciting news regarding the 2026 Competitive Series. Both Evo 2026 and Evo Japan 2026 have 2XKO in the lineup. What this means is that since 2XKO is being played in both Evo events, they are both chosen to be major events for the 2026 Competitive Series, with Evo Japan 2026 as the Season 2 major event and Evo 2026 as the Season 3 major event. It even came close to how exciting the part where Skullgirls was chosen to actually be in the main lineup for Evo 2022, the first event since the COVID-19 pandemic has hit was. It is hopeful that 2XKO is being played in both Evo and Evo Japan in 2026 as major events for the Competitive Series, but it is unknown that 2XKO will also be played at next year's Evo France as a major or challenger event. It is ways to go and it's proven to be far from my sight.

Regardless, what would be amazing is that if there is a duo of Vi and Caitlyn, both outside and inside the competitive scene, it's gonna be very exciting as watching all-female matches in 2XKO, which I have been wondering if that has more kicks than women's tag team wrestling since Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the WB that she won't make it to MultiVersus due to the game's end of support. And since Caitlyn is the fifth female Champion and the fifth Arcane character, the odds of experiencing an all-female match and an Arcane match has increased a bit. But don't worry, more female characters after Caitlyn will make their debut to the game to increase the odds further and there won't be any more Arcane characters for the rest of the year.

Fighting games have been a staple for when it comes to online experiences and fails, especially with playing one match and then leaving. However, it is less dangerous than ragequitting when they are losing, where as, rage quitting multiple times to annoy them applies to dying multiple times in a Tak game. This happens in most fighting games, including 2XKO.

But 2XKO will not the only tag fighter coming in Evo 2026 because Invincible VS is also being played. With 2XKO and Invincible VS being played at Evo for the first time, it's gonna be a blockbuster and a Cinderella story despite Mortal Kombat 1 being absent since Invincible VS has taken that spot because they knew that the lineup needs to have at least one M-rated fighting game that children under 17 can't play. But one Invincible character being Omni Man made his debut to Mortal Kombat 1 and that could serve as a tech demo for an Invincible fighting game that came into fruition.

Speaking of, did you know that there is a Mightykeef skit that covers the Evo 2026 lineup, but also covers everyone's reaction to how Mortal Kombat 1 couldn't be chosen? It came out on Christmas Eve and became so emotional that for years, Mortal Kombat has been on the lineup and it was rejected from next year's Evo. But that's not the first time it happened. The first time it happened was when they had an Evo 2020 lineup announcement, until the pandemic hit to relegate Evo to an online format to have online tournaments for games with rollback netcode and brought Mortal Kombat 11 back into the mix.

I think that in almost every Evo skit, I kept on hearing, "He ain't even out yet. He could flop," which has been the trope that has been used about games that came out before Evo. 2018 was BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, 2019 was Samurai Shodown, 2020 was Granblue Fantasy Versus, 2021 was Guilty Gear Strive and 2026 will be Invincible VS to come out before Evo.

And here's another thing. Back in 2007, Nintendo has worked with Evo to bring Smash into the events. It has grown for years until in 2022 when Nintendo has announced that they are pulling Smash from Evo in its entirety following Sony's purchase of the event. Evo 2022 was the first event since Nintendo has announced that they won't be a part of Evo. But one platform fighter being played in Evo 2026 is Rivals of Aether II, an indie platform fighter that is released exclusively on PC. And there is an indie tag fighter that is akin to 2XKO. I'll tell you more about it in a future post. Stay tuned for that.

Now we're ready to move to familiar territory. Someone ring up Valentine because it's time to operate. Back in 2021, Hidden Variable has taken over 2nd Encore development with the inception of the Season 1 Pass containing Annie and three characters. They released one character per year, but not during crunch time. 2021 was Annie, 2022 was Umbrella, 2023 was Black Dahlia, and 2024 was Marie being the cherry on top, literally, if you look at the character select screen. With all four characters in the Season 1 Pass and the update with the Season 1 Pass for the Nintendo Switch and Xbox ports came out, the general balance patch came to bring balance changes to the whole cast as the cherry on top.

The only thing that made me excited about it was the innovations introduced to Star Power, with H specials offering EX special moves and all that. That made me feel like I was playing BlazBlue, but with Annie that wanting her in BBTAG is like wanting her in Melty Blood: Type Lumina. By the time the update came out, Annie was having an audio issue on PlayStation, which I why I didn't record her tutorial and edit it to play Justice Sword in the background until the hotfix came. I made posts at the Skullheart Forums that praised how the general balance patch became so well done, but I got straight up humiliated by that pig slop low content post penalty smear. It makes no sense at all whatsoever. I praised the devs for their hard work on the general balance patch and they dare humiliate me, penalizing me for a low content post? No, humiliation is NOT a good thing.

Originally, Hidden Variable said that they would release the additional VO content consisting of English and Japanese VO for the Season Pass characters' story modes, Japanese VO for the Season Pass characters during combat and Annie's alternative voice pack. But they had to delay it to 2025, which is the year we're on now almost coming to an end. But we didn't get word about it because of what happened.

Back in November 1, 2024, payments started rolling in for Autumn to pay what they owe, but refused to make a single payment. They had until January 21 to make payments. However, when none of the payments came, Hidden Variable provided Autumn with login information needed to provide community support so that it wouldn't cause any damage, then filed a lawsuit against Autumn for alleged breaches of contract, et al. This exposed the main reason why we haven't gotten word about the additional VO content for 2nd Encore because Hidden Variable is no longer involved in the development of Skullgirls due to that legal dispute with Autumn.

Thankfully, Skullgirls is staying alive that Autumn is leading the development of this game and that's a good thing. It's definetely a good thing because there are couple pieces of content left over like Roxie, the third guest star, additional VO content consisting of Annie's alternative voice pack and English and Japanese VO for the Season Pass characters on Story Mode and for combat and user experience updates I heard about. However, we didn't get word about any of them because they were working on the long-awaited feature, Guilds. They have been promising this feature since they have taken over in the past few months. And now that the Guilds have launched back in November, the next chapter of Skullgirls development can REALLY begin in the New Year for both 2nd Encore and Mobile. In fact, it's gonna be a fresh new chapter since 2nd Encore is now available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch.

The Skullgirls Community Tour has been announced to have a year of online and offline tournaments, like 2XKO's First Impact program, which has tournaments for the rest of the year since Early Access launched. 2nd Encore's X account has posted their first message on X since Autumn has taken over. Because of the Skullgirls Community Tour to energize the community after the delay of the additional VO content that frustrated us and with the Guilds have launched, it's a case to say that Autumn is gonna pick up the pieces Hidden Variable has left over. And not just that, but also grow as a team and make changes to their database to speed up development going forward for both Mobile and 2nd Encore.

The difference between the Skullgirls Community Tour and the 2XKO Competitive Series is pronounced. While the Skullgirls Community Tour has offline events, it also has online events, with TNS Online as the first online event starting in January 4, unlike the Competitive Series, which only has local tournaments. And while TNS Online is the first event for the Community Tour, it's actually a warmup event before the first offline tournament, Frosty Faustings XVIII, which is the event to kick off both the Skullgirls Community Tour and the 2XKO Competitive Series that the new chapter of Skullgirls development really begins while 2XKO launches on console with Season 1 in January 2026 and fair enough. If we get announcements for both games, it'll be exciting, and wouldn't that be cool?

However, while both Skullgirls and 2XKO are being played at Frosty's to kick off their competitive scenes, the difference between both games' competitive action in Frosty's is the schedule depending on how many players have registered. See, Skullgirls is going to be played on one singular day being Friday due to it having a small amount of players that signed up while 2XKO is going to be played throughout the whole event along with Guilty Gear Strive, Street Fighter 6, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising and Tekken 8 due to the largest amount of player registrations. If the final leaderboard shows that if 2XKO tops registration for Frosty Faustings XVIII, it'll show that 2XKO would be the last standing game to close it out and that the game will unleash its full potential in January 20 when 2XKO comes to consoles.

Additionally, I'm going to innovate listening to BBTAG music while playing Skullgirls. I play the theme of the stage at the beginning of the match until one character dies on both teams and solo matches. On teams, I play the point character's theme upon arrival after the death of a teammate, while on solos, I play the stage's theme at the beginning and play the theme of the character who wins that round, like how 2XKO plays the theme of the character that takes the round by KOing an opponent before time is up. But it's gonna be on certain stages.

I want to show you some palettes I made on the Skullheart Forums to honor the upcoming new chapter of Skullgirls development. First off, we'll start with the elephant in the room, an update regarding my projects. Here's a look at the BBTAG palettes for Skullgirls characters. You will notice that it has a gradient to give slots flair and updated some of the characters' images as they are in HD. These palettes are so neat that Zone-Tan is actually eligible for her Yukiko Amagi palette. I'm sorry that no new characters were added beyond Zone-Tan because submissions are temporarily closed as they are reworking submission progress. But don't worry, they'll reopen soon. Probably in the New Year.

I find it weird that big sisters usually boss little sisters around, so I made the Renoir sisters the palettes of Pelekai sisters, with Parasoul in her Nani Pelekai palette and Umbrella in her Lilo Pelekai palette and Hungern in his Stitch palette. When I first made them, I was intrigued by the flair and happy with how well they turned out. Shout outs to watching the live action Lilo and Stitch for driving me to do this endeavor. I didn't have the time to look for a Hawaiian background to give it flair because I was lazy to do that.

Why stop at the Renoir sisters' Linda and Louise Belcher palettes when I have more Bob's Burgers' palettes to share here. Here is Cerebella and Feng in their Jocelyn and Tammy Larsen palettes. After I made them, I find them intriguing and the quality is astonishing as those of the Pelekai sisters palettes.

And finally in the Bob's Burgers palettes department, Beowulf and Annie in their Bob and Tina Belcher palettes with Sagan in his Gene Belcher palette. We have a clear look at these palettes as new submissions were added. Just look at the quality. It's so much better.

I wouldn't dare announce what I have been working on behind the scenes until the time is right. And now that the time is right as Autumn is bringing the development of Skullgirls to the next chapter really beginning in 2026 as they set their sights on new features as they grow as a team, here it is, the Skullgirls X Bob's Burgers collection. We have a full view of these palettes without a subjective viewing. A special shoutout to 20th Century Fox, now renamed to 20th Century Studios as Disney now owns Fox and even a dream combination of Wilo Productions, Buck & Millie Productions, DiC and Buena Vista International, Inc. Autumn is going to take Skullgirls to the next level.

And speaking of taking it to the next level, Madxruler has announced something very big for their fan project, Sega vs. Capcom: The Next Level.

Right off the bat, the trailer starts out with Sonic and X getting an update to their art style, indicating that each character is having an update to their art style that fits with the BG of the stage. The trailer also shows new moves for existing characters and two new characters, Vyse from Skies from Arcadia and Morrigan from Darkstalkers. We also saw Sonic shooting waves out of his kicks like in Sonic Frontiers and even Vyse summoning the Skull Shield and using it as his Persona.

You know, I have discovered that after looking at Vyse's gameplay, it turns out that Draven won't be the only character to have the same playstyle as when he comes to 2XKO because Katarina will also have the same playstyle as Vyse when she comes to 2XKO. The end of the teaser trailer shows that the full game will come out in July 2026 for Season 1 with the possibility of releasing the game at Dream Con, which would be way after 2XKO's big and global launch in January 20, 2026 for Season 1 and the kickoff of the Competitive Series 2026 with Frosty Faustings XVIII.

Now, because it was a teaser, they haven't shown any new features, new characters beyond Vyse and Morrigan or when is the next Beta yet. We will see when the full trailer drops in January. I was gonna do a reaction video regarding the short trailer, but decided to wait until the full trailer comes out.

We are approaching the New Year and headed into 2026, the year that is gonna be a strong and a big year for fighting games because we got 2XKO launching with the Competitive Series, the next chapter of Skullgirls development with the Community Tour, Evo and Evo Japan having 12 games, Invincible VS and Marvel Tōkon coming out and Sega vs. Capcom: The Next Level going to officially launch with an overhaul in 2026. Here's to a wonderful New Year. Now, the moral of the story for the FGC, never play one match and then just dip or rage quit online.