How Violent Video Games CHANGED the Industry Forever

If you were to look at the history of video games and if you were going to ask what became the ongoing trend in gaming that changed the game industry forever, the answer, in my opinion, would be violent video games. If you go back to the beginning of video games, especially with the inception of 16-bit era home consoles consisting of the SNES, Genesis and even the SEGA CD, fighting games have always become a popular trend on the era. This was popularized by one of the popular fighting game franchises, Street Fighter. However, there is another popular fighting game franchise that sparked controversy, Mortal Kombat.

The very first Mortal Kombat was released in 1992 for arcades by Midway Games. But when Acclaim Entertainment ported it to the NES and Genesis, the game became egregiously controversial because of its photoreaslistic sprites with depictions of bloody violence with gore caused by Fatalities, unlike Street Fighter II, which uses traditional handmade sprites that resembled cartoon or comic book illustrations and has little to no blood. This served as a subject of starting the 1993-94 United States Senate hearings on controversial video games held by two senators, Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl and covers in newspapers.

Nintendo and SEGA released Mortal Kombat, respectively. The SEGA Genesis version, while shipped, has eliminated the graphic effects and can be added by using a well-published cheat code titled "ABACABB" while Nintendo required Acclaim to replace blood with gray sweat, edit Fatalities and change other parts of the game's artwork to remove inappropriate elements like severed heads from spikes in a way for Nintendo to keep the SNES family-friendly on the SNES version, but the gray sweat effects can be reverted to the original red blood effects and bring back uncensored Fatalities via a Game Genie code input as BDB4-DD07. However, the SEGA Genesis version sold more than the SNES version.

But the first Mortal Kombat wasn't the only one that was graphically violent to be a part of the hearing because Night Trap was also a part of the hearing after it had sexual violence against women, deeming it very offensive. Lethal Enforcers' home console release is also obvious to have graphic violence. This prompted Toys "R" Us and KB Toys to remove the following games and peripherals that looked like guns from shelves and SEGA to cease making copies in January 1994.

Before 1994, SEGA created their own game rating system, the Videogame Rating Council, which used three ratings, GA, MA-13 and MA-17. When the SEGA Genesis version of Mortal Kombat was shipped to have toned down violence, it was given an MA-13 rating. After the respective extremely violent and offensive video games came out on home consoles, they became a part of the senate hearing talking about the following games that are very violent and offensive. The hearing made calls to establish the rating system in North America, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).

The ESRB rates games depending on the content and uses the ratings of EC, E, E10+, T, M and AO, which is the only rating that can't be seen in stores. The EC rating was retired due to underuse like the KA rating that was replaced by the E rating. It also has the temporary placeholder rating, Rating Pending. The rating only appears in marketing, advertising and promotional materials related to games that are expected to carry an ESRB rating and gets replaced with a final ESRB rating once it has been assigned. The RP rating comes with the content warning that shows that the game may contain content inappropriate for children to lead to a T or M rating. Inappropriate content include themes, language and mature content.

The ESRB was established back in September 1994 by the ESA in response to the backlash and criticism regarding controversial video games that contain extreme violence or sexual content, especially after the 1993 congressional hearings following the home console releases of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap and even the home computer release of Doom. After the establishment date, future games beyond that date carry the ESRB rating. Violence in video games today has been a staple across the gaming generations that the ESRB leans heavily into violence.

While Mortal Kombat is aimed at mature audiences because of its graphic and gory nature that leads to getting an M rating, we did see one mainline game of the franchise that is not M-rated, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It was given a T rating due to the inclusion of DC characters, which is why the violence and Fatalities were toned down. While the game was met with mixed reception, there is one thing that was quite interesting about this game.

When Raiden and Superman, the two leaders of their universes, destabilized the portal when taking down Shao Kahn and Darkseid, the two antagonists of both universes, they created a combined force behind the combat rage, Dark Kahn. It created my favorite events like Liu Kang and Scorpion ending up in Gotham, Raiden teleporting to a different world to save Liu Kang and even Raiden and Superman teaming up to defeat Dark Kahn to make the universes back to normal, which resulted a switcheroo of defeat -- Darkseid being bound in the Netherrealm and Shao Kahn being trapped in shattering glass. And to be honest, the story in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is really interesting to experience.

However, this would be the final game to be published by Midway before their liquidation. Then the 2011 reboot of Mortal Kombat came out as the first game of the franchise under the NetherRealm Studios umbrella to return to its roots of a 2D fighter, which of course, retained the series' controversy regarding graphic violence.

There are child-friendly games that have violence in them, but the physical inflict in them is not graphic and has no blood. Take Pokémon for example. It's a child-friendly IP that doesn't have any mature content in them and has content appropriate for all ages, including adults, who also play child-friendly games. That's why the IP is mostly rated E for Everyone, like other IPs that are family-friendly like Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and many others. These are the ones that have non-graphic violence. This type of violence is called cartoon violence.

Controversial video games became the source of starting the predicament of them having sexual content and excessively extreme violence, so what are two controversial games that sparked the creation of the ESRB upon release on home consoles? Mortal Kombat and Night Trap. That started the predicament and sparked the hearings that allowed experts to make calls to establish the ESRB. That's how violent video games changed the industry forever. The trend of violence in video games will continue as future games with violence will come upon us.

I seem to have another backstory blog post coming soon, so stay tuned for that.

I Bought TWO Paper Mario-Inspired Games

Paper Mario is a papercraft adventure RPG that still holds a lot of magic for people today since the remastered Switch release of The Thousand-Year Door came out. But what if I told you that there are two games inspired by Paper Mario that don't star the Nintendo characters that I bought on Steam? You came to the right place, so today, I'm gonna dive into talking about the two Paper Mario-esque games that became universally liked by Paper Mario fans. Let's jump right in.

I'm back with a brand new post that talks about two games that are inspired by one of Nintendo's wonderful franchises, Paper Mario. So, Paper Mario has a dedicated fan base, especially to the first three entries of the series. The fan favorites are usually the original Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door, with Super Paper Mario trailing behind due to the turn-based RPG mechanics introduced in the first two games.

And as we get to the 3DS era, Nintendo tried something new to the series. And it pretty much became divisive with Sticker Star. Then Color Splash for the WiiU came along to use cards that are purchased with coins. It became a flop due to having the action-adventure format Sticker Star had. Then the series was taken to the next level with the Origami King. While has the return of favored RPG elements and removed unwanted features, it became criticized due to continuing the action-adventure format. When Nintendo confirms a new game, they try something new and take liberty of the story and gameplay. However, none of the three games since Sticker Star were nowhere near as good as the Thousand-Year Door according to the fans. They have all fell short and have been met with backlash and disdain.

But what I like to talk about now, though, is not one, but two Paper Mario-esque games that I have came across and both of them have blew my mind. There are Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling and Escape from Ever After. These are the two games that are inspired by Paper Mario. I'm going to into detail about both of them. I'm gonna start with Bug Fables.

Bug Fables is an adventure RPG where you play as the trio consisting of Vi, Kabbu and Leif as they uncover the secrets of the Land of Bugaria and embark on an epic pilgrimage in search of the Everlasting Sapling, the treasure that can grant immortality.

The gameplay in Bug Fables is similar to Paper Mario that you must time your button presses and press the right button to reduce damage and make successful attacks. It uses teamwork points (TP) required to perform skills. Once you defeated an enemy, you earn EXP. Get enough of them and you'll go up a level and would be prompted choose either increasing max HP, max TP or max MP, which is from equipping medals that you can find outside of combat and equip them. They vary by points, so equip them carefully. But there is one key difference. Since the trio is you must play, you have the whole trio in combat instead of having two characters in battle.

I'm on the verge of playing through Bug Fables and recording my gameplay and sharing it on my separate gaming channel where you'll find my gameplay videos and clips at in starting my own Let's Play series that would be G-rated, indicating that I am avoiding swearing in any of my videos because I'm not allowed to swear on the Internet and I want them to be suitable for all audiences. The game's environment and combat is off the chain and blew me away. But one bullcrap problem I'm having is that I can't switch between fullscreen and windowed on the fly with the F11 key. But this is not the only problem. I'm playing it on a DualSense controller, but the game shows incorrect button glyphs. But overall, it's a decent Paper Mario-inspired game.

As soon as I finish Bug Fables, I'm gonna start playing the other one as the coin is flipped to Escape from Ever After. Escape from Ever After is also an adventure RPG where it has the main character, Flynt Buckler, who is a classic fairytale adventurer that meets his allies along with way. His arch-enemy is an evil dragon named Tinder. Flynt has came across something weird when he stormed Tinder's castle. It was converted into corporate offices.

The demo of this game was a limited time demo. I was able to download the demo so that I can get to try it out. The gameplay in Escape from Ever After is similar to Paper Mario. You have two characters in combat and make right button presses and timings to block attacks and nail moves. There's a gauge that the party shares called Mocha Points (MP). Skills consume this resource. There is even a gauge that fills up when performing correct actions and consumes from synergy skills that measure depending on the current party. The gauge is the Synergy Gauge. It's something that the Paper Mario franchise never had.

At the end of each battle, you earn EXP. Earn 100 EXP and you'll be able to go up a level and choose either increasing max HP, max MP or max BP, which stands for Badge Points. You find badges outside of combat and they vary by points like the medals system in Bug Fables. Of course, Escape from Ever After has the same problem being not switching between windowed and fullscreen mid game with the F11 key.

I have downloaded the demo version before it went away and the game blew me away. The combat is godlike and the environment and music are well done. Now that's a unique style that gets the Lost Odyssey seal of approval. In fact, the game as a whole is goshdarn charming and decent like Bug Fables is.

I was able to buy Escape from Ever After at a discounted price, but I won't play it until I finish Bug Fables, after I decided to play and beat Bug Fables before I play Escape from Ever After. It's not like saying I hate deciding which Paper Mario-inspired game to play first could anger Poseidon, right?

Here's the thing. Paper Mario's fanbase is to the first two games that use RPG elements and we have both titles inspired by the franchise. If you look at the Metacritic scores for both of them, Bug Fables has scored an 86 out of 100 and Escape from Ever After has scored an 82 out of 100, with the average score of an 83 out of 100, indicating that both games are being generally favorable and met with great reception by critics. They both pay homage to the first two games of the franchise and they became games for Paper Mario fans, including me.

Both of them are inspired by the first two games of the Paper Mario franchise that they are both indies that became well-liked because they bank on the fact of smaller teams avoiding practices that bigger companies do and having the tendency to do things bigger companies wouldn't do.

That being said, I decided to make a Venn diagram to compare the differences between Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After and state what things both games have.

Right off the bat, I'm gonna be taking the initial Venn diagram between both Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling and Escape from Ever After. Because this is a Venn diagram, the middle part has common denominators between both Paper Mario-inspired games. I colored the left circle green for Bug Fables and the right circle indigo for Escape from Ever After, which I found interesting. First off, we need to go over the common denominators or similarities between both games and that's the point of making a crossover game between two games. Here are the common denominators between them.

Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After are both Paper Mario-inspired games. They involve nailing attacks with the right button presses, both stories go by chapters, have separate save files, recovering resources after levelling up and prompts for choosing a max stat after going up a level. There's even out of combat actions and gibberish in dialogs depending on the character. There's the badge system that involves equipping badges to give the party the edge and change the style.

So we now have the similarities between Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After. The information that we can have without a focused point of view.

Now let's go on to the next phase; stating the differences between two games and what they are.

Bug Fables uses berries as currency, the whole trio is in combat, save points that fully recover HP and TP, has quests posted on the board and a turn relay system.

Escape from Ever After uses two characters in combat, uses the Synergy System that measures strength based on the current party and a gauge that fills up from making right button presses, vending machines that fully restore HP and MP and coins as currency.

And here's the full Venn diagram containing both games' similarities and differences exclusive to one game. This is the final diagram to have everything.

As of right now, I decided to suspend playing Bug Fables until I get a new gaming headset for quality. It has a mic that cancels the background noise so that you would only hear me without hearing any background noises, including the fan noises and my mother calling me, especially when I'm recording. Now, are we gonna see a third Paper Mario-inspired game that pertains to superhero comics, Greek Mythology or whatever? I don't know and I don't care. We like a third Paper Mario-inspired game. Escape from Ever After and Bug Fables are available now on PC and console, so go check it out.

Both games' gameplay is identical to the original Paper Mario, meaning if and when Nintendo is planning to make a brand new Paper Mario game, they must make a modern Paper Mario title and base it off of the first two games that launched to critical acclaim with new ideas that would be callbacks to the first two games' core of the game in a way to take the original foundation and amplify and multiply it, not break and change it like they did with the disdained trio of games since Sticker Star. That's how Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After became well-liked and well-received from fans that both of them use the gameplay identical to the first two Paper Mario games.

The indie game department comes with having two Paper Mario-inspired games, so do you know what is coming in the indie game department? An indie 2XKO with Saturday AM characters called Saturday AM: Battle Manga. I have a post that talks about it, so here's the link to it.

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

Stop with the One-Game Per Month Nonsense. Please.

So far, Sony has been releasing one classic game per-month for PlayStation Plus Premium and this practice has happened for the seventh month in a row and met with backlash that I agree with. Now, this post is not clickbait or opinion-based. This is a serious post that I'm gonna make because I agree with the backlash regarding the dumb and laughable cadence of one classic game per month. I'm serious and I'm not joking. Why am I making this serious post is because a lot of people, including me, are fed up with Sony releasing one classic game per month as it happens the seventh month in a row and this cycle needs to stop. I kid you not.

Premium is literally starving for more classic games. This practice began later in 2025 and Sony needs to divert their resources to Implicit Conversions to give us more than one classic game per month. I agree with the backlash. The one-game-per-month release cadence is making fans mad. Literally, one game isn't gonna do it. It does nothing but make fans mad and make them a laughingstock when there are a lot of them just itching to be in the catalog. Serioulsly, Sony needs to stop releasing one game per month and continue releasing more than one game per month. I mean, there are games I wished for in that cadence, but still.

This just tells me that Sony is absolutely tone-deaf, acting like little babies with the cadence of giving us one game per month and making Premium a joke, especially when there are a lot of games out there like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, the Simpsons Hit & Run and even Tak among many others. Why can't Sony understand or recognize this? We're getting Tekken: Dark Resurrection this month. This is a PSP release of the PS3 release that was met with mixed reception. There are a lot of games just itching to be in the catalog, yet Sony is investing into being a laughingstock.

And Sony, if you're reading this, please for the love of God, please lay off of and refrain from the one classic game per month release cadence, even though there are a couple of them I played during my childhood in it. All that does is nothing but make you a laughingstock and make fans upset when there are a lot of heavy hitters and classic games we play during our childhood out there. Just invest your resources to Implicit Conversions to give us more than one classic game per month. Heck, might as well pick up and pace and shift to giving us five classic games per month. That could increase the pace of releasing classic games in a faster pace. That's all I wanted to say. Please give us more than one classic game per month. That's all I ask.

2XKO 2026 Characters Theory (UPDATE 2)

Unconkable, a.k.a. Shaun Rivera, has given us a heads up that became quite a bombshell. Despite the layoffs, 2XKO is definetely here to stay with a commitment to the 2026 Competitive Series and supporting it and I am very relieved of that. To make it more groundbreaking, we have a preview of two upcoming characters coming to 2XKO to double the seven-character roster from Alpha Lab 2, and one of them is apparently someone I hadn't mentioned in any of my 2XKO posts. Let's jump right in.

I'm back with another update regarding my theory of what characters coming to 2XKO this year that left me quite satisfied and relieved. In the previous update, I talked about Caitlyn coming to 2XKO and she's the character I theorized and wanted. In this update, I'm going to talk about the two upcoming characters Shaun has given us a preview of and they're gonna double the roster from the seven-character roster from Alpha Lab 2 to 14. They are two fan favorites, Akali, the Rogue Assassin, and Senna, the Redeemer. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Akali and Senna are coming to 2XKO and it's real. I'm gonna talk about the two female characters and how would they play in 2XKO.

First off, let's talk about Akali. She is a stylish and agile kunoichi that cuts opponents down with precision. You may not know this, but Akali is an Ionian Champion, the third one to come to 2XKO. She strikes alone and makes a pledge to defend Ionia with one kill at a time as she would abandon the Kinkou Order and leave behind the Fist of Shadow title, though she holds onto all learned from Shen, her master. She knows that her bond with Ionia would never be broken asunder and cast into the sea in Runeterra, thanks to learning the ropes from Shen.

See, Akali is the character I wanted and theorized. Looked at her abilities weird enough and she also looks savage. Her kit in 2XKO comes with a lot of fluidity her kit in League of Legends has a little bit of. She has aesthetics that are exclusive to 2XKO like teleporting and spinning with a kicking dunk.

Now let's move on to another character. Senna is cursed from her childhood to be haunted by the supernatural Black Mist that she joined the sacred order known as the Sentinels of Light and fiercely fought back--only to be killed and let her soul imprisoned in a lantern by Thresh. That given her the ability to wield the power of the Black Mist. Everything has changed since Thresh came along just to humiliate the likes of Senna with imprisoning her soul in a lantern without a scintilla of retaliation. That's when one man comes in to avenge his wife, Lucian, who is Senna's husband.

In League of Legends, Senna draws the Mist into her Relic Cannon to transform into a wraith, while in 2XKO, she turns into a wraith when she collects enough Mist for a brief duration, meaning that she'll come with a circular gauge that fills up when collecting Mist. Since Senna is a Marksman, she'll have the same treatment as Caitlyn, with swinging her Relic Cannon, kicking, shooting projectiles with S1 and fluid combos.

The only thing about this is that we're gonna have a roster that has an even gender composition. When Vi was announced, the roster had an even gender composition of four males and four females in the roster, until Blitzcrank, Teemo and Warwick came along to break it, making it seven male characters. Caitlyn debuted as the fifth female character to increase the chances of witnessing an all-female match to have two teams of different female characters. To increase the chances even further, Akali and Senna are the two female characters coming to 2XKO, thus establishing an even gender composition of seven males and seven females. The roster needed more female characters this year anyway, especially when girls and women need to have the same level attention as boys and men, especially in sports and esports leagues.

2026 Character Roadmap:

Caitlyn ✅
Akali ✅
Senna
???
???

Caitlyn and Akali are the two charcters I have theorized while Senna isn't. I have already said in the post that the characters I talked about are hypothetical. Senna is not the hypothetical character that I hadn't mentioned her in the past. The character roadmap is independent from 2XKO's ingame seasons since it has shifted from having five seasons to three seasons, generally meaning that each season will come with stage, so Senna will launch in Season 2 along with a new stage and the final character of the year will launch in Season 3 with a new stage.

Characters so far:

Ahri
Akali
Blitzcrank
Braum
Caitlyn
Darius
Ekko
Illaoi
Jinx

Senna
Teemo
Vi
Warwick

Yasuo

I'm gonna take the 14-character roster and divide it into the SEGA and Capcom sides across the board. Since 2XKO is moving to have three ingame seasons, the 14-character roster will last until the fourth character launches after Senna within Season 2. I'm leaving out the 15th character until the 16th character is revealed. Let's get to dividing the roster by both sides. We'll start with the SEGA side.

Ahri, Teemo and Warwick remain, Blitzcrank, Caitlyn, Ekko and Jinx move with Ahri, Teemo and Warwick. The SEGA side has Ahri, Blitzcrank, Caitlyn, Ekko, Jinx, Teemo and Warwick.

Vi and Yasuo remain, Braum, Darius and Illaoi move with Vi and Yasuo, leaving it open for Akali and Senna. The Capcom side has Akali, Braum, Darius, Illaoi, Senna, Vi and Yasuo.

SEGA side:

Ahri

Blitzcrank

Caitlyn

Ekko

Jinx
Teemo
Warwick

Capcom side:

Akali
Braum
Darius
Illaoi
Senna
Vi
Yasuo

So we now have seven characters on each side, with Akali and Senna both on the Capcom side. I find it ironic that these two new characters would both be on the Capcom side. Every time a new character launches, they go on the Capcom side at the moment. Well, except Vi, who was on the SEGA side at the moment when the game's demo was showcased at Evo 2025. But here.

Key points:

Ahri on the SEGA side - NiGHTS
Blitzcrank on the SEGA side - Vectorman
Caitlyn on the SEGA side - Gain Ground

Warwick on the SEGA side - Altered Beast
Akali on the Capcom side - Onimusha
Darius on the Capcom side - Knights of the Round
Senna on the Capcom side - Darkstalkers

I am excited for both Akali and Senna coming to 2XKO, so why would I be mad about that like I was when a cringe and annoying character to play against like Teemo had to make his debut? We have Yasuo, the samurai of the wind, so we're getting Akali, the ninja of the shadow because let me tell you something, samurai and ninja are Japan's two greatest warriors and they are willing to have a duo of Yasuo and Akali, who will likely to have intro dialogues between each other.

The statements were then amped up when Senna is announced as the first independent character coming to 2XKO with a unique resource that fills up when collecting Mist. And by independent, I mean that she is not in a specific region in Runeterra like Annie, Aatrox, Alistar, Smolder, Aurelion Sol, Evelynn, Zaahen and more. When characters are not in a specific region, they have the Runeterra label on them. Senna may be a Marksman character like Jinx, Teemo and Caitlyn before her, but I don't think that she's gonna be a zoner like them. But I do think that this could give us the Buena Vista effect she could have.

I have countless testimonies telling me of many players who played 2XKO would try out League of Legends and play as few characters players want. Take Leffen, Smash legend, for example. He played Akali in League of Legends to indicate that he wanted the character in 2XKO and his wish is being fulfilled. Akali is officially coming to 2XKO along with Senna to be coming soon.

With an update regarding two upcoming new characters that are both female following the layoffs, good golly, I'm happy and relieved that 2XKO is definetely not going anywhere... I thank God for this blessing. And most importantly, I thank God that we didn't take an L like we did with MultiVersus. How did we take that L, you ask? It's deciding to shut down the game after five seasons with the intention of bringing characters across the Warner Bros. portfolio and brand to Fortnite as skins. There are a lot of characters just itching to be in the roster like Daffy Duck, Godzilla, Scorpion, Harry Potter, Green Lantern, Kong, Gandalf, Connie, the Flash, Furiosa and even Barbie. That's the L I'm referring to. In fact, the game's launch became so lackluster, it was reported that Player First Games, the team behind MultiVersus, was a large team when WB Games acquired the whole team. That's how they ignored players' feedback and made monetization so aggressive when the game launched.

See, since the 2XKO team is now smaller, they are now avoiding this practice. They knew that a smaller and focused team is better than a bigger and distracting team that laying off half of the 2XKO team would benefit ensuring a long-term sustainability. Leaner teams have the tendency to do things larger teams wouldn't dare do, including having enough momentum to support a leaner team long term, focusing on the core gameplay, driving a larger player base and avoiding making monetization aggressive. Like, for example, look at Overwatch. The game is being universally liked because the team behind it polished it well and have avoided making monetization predatory.

The 2XKO team has laser-focused in on what made the Alpha Lab playtests so appealing. Instead of fragmenting and trying drastic new things, they polished and multiplied on what made them so appealing. The game resonated well with a core passionate audience because of the fact that honored the Alpha Lab playtests with one butt to kick, but nevertheless, momentum hadn't reached that level needed to support a team long-term.

They're remaining committed to supporting 2XKO, especially when there are fan favorites just begging to be in the roster. Akali and Senna are two fan favorites on the docket, so others like Katarina, Riven, Talon, Bard, Gragas, Garen, Sona, Zed, Lee Sin, Annie, Gangplank, Miss Fortune, Graves, Thresh, Lucian, Tryndamere, Ashe, Ezreal, Jayce and Viktor will always have a chance since they have a lot of characters planned and locked in under their belt. That's a big W for us 2XKO fans. They will not be diverting their resources into bringing the characters to Fortnite as skins as long as they remain committed. That's a big W for us 2XKO fans.

Predicted 2026 Character Roadmap:

Caitlyn
Akali
Senna
Katarina
Miss Fortune

Since Senna is one of the characters I hadn't mentioned, I went on ahead and decided to put in two red-haired characters in my predicted 2026 characters, but had to sadly leave out Kennen because I don't think that our Ionian Yordle of the storm is gonna be one of the 2026 characters since he is one of the characters who is related to Akali. But that's just my speculation. We can find out if Kennen is actually one of the 2026 characters or not. Now, I'm leaving Katarina in my predicted roadmap because she is not scrapped.

I think that Miss Fortune might have more of a chance. It's not just because she is one of Illaoi's related characters in the universe page and because of the Brazen Hydra. It's also because she banks on having aesthetics and mechanics missing the current roster that if our red-haired pirate lady did come to 2XKO, she could literally use Harley Quinn's performance in Injustice 2 with a little bit of gameplay similar to Noel Vermillion from the BlazBlue franchise and probably have a cartwheel kick Caltiyn has; the adequate definitions of the current roster's missing aesthetics or mechanics.

See, having both of them in my predicted roadmap piqued my interest that I have talked about the thin line between Katarina and Sarah Fortune, League of Legends' two red-haired stomach showing female characters, in private. This wasn't a debate between a red-haired assassin of Noxus who wields twin knives and a red-haired pirate of Bilgewater who wields twin pistols. It's hard to believe it's really palpable.

Again, we didn't take an L like those MultiVersus fans. Their lives stink that it had to shut down after five seasons. That's an L there. Talking about Harry Potter and all that. I'm very glad that we got rewarded for our diligence to make 2XKO thrive with our energy as loyal fans of this game. They were waiting for Harry Potter and they became sad that MultiVersus shut down. The copium is indeed palpable as Keef said when he was talking about Naruto fans getting Naruto X Boruto: Ninja Storm Connections instead of Naruto: Ninja Storm 5 because Ninja Storm 4 is the final game of the franchise to be a bookend of the Shippuden era and Ninja Storm Connections has the whole Naruto story and a brand new Boruto story.

The copium is palpable that we're getting Akali and the first Runeterra character being Senna. Surely, Akali's debut could mean that Katarina can have more of a chance and not just Katarina, but Shen as well. Surely, Senna could be the Nubia of 2XKO, counter with Malcolm Graves when he debuts and her debut could mean that her husband and Thresh are likely to debut, right? Well, either way, we can see when the time comes.

While Senna is none of the characters I mentioned, the final update regarding my theory for the 2026 character roadmap is coming once the last two new characters of the year are revealed, so stay tuned for that, along with the future post where I'm gonna list the five characters that I think could potentially come to 2XKO in 2027, which is the time League of Legends is having a huge graphics and technology overhaul. I hope you understand that the characters I'll be listing are hypothetical. Spoiler alert: it'll have one Arcane character since they're done with Arcane characters for now.

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 the 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