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