HUGE News for 2XKO in 2026

Today, we got some huge news for 2XKO in 2026 that I did not see coming. Riot Games has just released a roadmap of everything coming to 2XKO in 2026 and there may be several things that come with a big holy crap. Let's jump right in.

I'm here with a new post that has some huge and crazy news for us 2XKO fans. Today, we have been given a glimpse of everything coming to 2XKO in 2026.

Riot Games has just posted a roadmap containing everything coming to 2XKO in 2026. I did not save the roadmap and put it on my files. Instead, I used Bandicam to screen capture the whole thing at a bigger size for better quality. I'm not gonna go over everything in the roadmap, but I'm gonna go over the things I screencapped that are big and exciting.

First off, the character roadmap. Here's a look at the first three characters in the character roadmap containing Caitlyn, Akali and Senna, our upcoming character. While it says that Senna is coming in 2026, we know for sure that looking at the Season 1 countdown, she is coming out on May 12 with the launch of Season 2. The first three characters revealed so far are all female and that's not a problem to me. I am excited for Senna and she's pretty darn dope like Akali is.

We know we have the last two unannounced characters on the roadmap. But something's not right. Why is Character 4 having the NEW! label? Well, if we look right...

An extra sixth character has been added to the schedule.

There are now three unannounced characters on the character roadmap.

The character roadmap now contains a total of SIX new characters coming this year. That's right, six new characters. The first half contains Caitlyn, Akali and Senna, and the second half has three unannounced characters. This is due to learning how we play in Early Access, whereas each season will have two new characters, following MultiVersus' footsteps. Season 0 saw the introduction of Teemo and Warwick, and Caitlyn and Akali fell within Season 1. What this means is that Senna and Character 4 will fall within Season 2, and Characters 5 and 6 will fall within Season 3. This year will expand the roster to 17 characters. Having six new characters this year is perfect. This could actually work for 2027 and beyond.

Speaking of which, this brings me to my point. Back at Evo 2024, they dropped the MultiVersus Season 2 trailer featuring Samurai Jack and Beetlejuice before Mortal Kombat 1 Top 6, so in a spirit of things, I think we're gonna see the 2XKO Season 2 trailer featuring Senna and Character 4 to be announced at the end of the trailer drop before or after 2XKO Top 8 at Evo Japan since Evo Japan is approaching and we're getting two new characters on each season. We know that they will announce something in regards to Ingrid for Street Fighter 6, the fifth Season 2 Pass character for Fatal Fury and the Kunimitsu trailer for Tekken 8 since she's coming in likely May, but it's likely that a Season 2 trailer may pop up before or after 2XKO Top 8 at Evo Japan. As for the fifth and sixth characters, they are likely to be revealed at a future Weekly Warmup post.

And here's another point. Remember the part where they announced Vi before Evo 2025 started? I think there are two methods of revealing the fourth character of the year after Senna. It's either announcing Character 4 at the end of the Season 2 trailer or announcing Character 4 and updating the roadmap to reveal the rest of the things and characters at the Friday Showcase at Evo 2026.

Now, remember what I said that neither Kennen nor Miss Fortune are gonna come out in 2026? I have good news for you. Since we're getting an extra sixth character this year to fall with the fifth character in Season 3, I am coming to a conclusion to believe that Character 6 is either Kennen or Miss Fortune. However, since we already have Spirit Hills, an Ionia-themed stage and Akali, it leaves me to predict that Miss Fortune would be Character 6 to fall with Character 5 in Season 3 and that is because of the Brazen Hydra having wanted posters of Gangplank and Tahm Kench on the right side of the stage. My prediction of Katarina being Character 4 to fall with Senna within Season 2 remains unchanged.

Honorable mentions:

Gangplank
Ashe
Riven
Garen

I'm gonna take the four honorable mentions I went over on the last post where I stated which of the five characters I think could potentially launch in 2026, but the last one standing could potentially be Character 5. Since we already have a Noxus-themed stage and I am speculating that Miss Fortune can be Character 6 because of the Brazen Hydra having wanted posters of Gangplank and Tahm Kench, I'm scratching out Riven and Gangplank. That leaves Garen and Ashe remaining. Currently, we never had a Demacian character in 2XKO yet and Braum is currently the only Freljordian in the roster. These characters will come with a new stage in Season 3, but one of them is Character 5 while the other is scratched out. I am scratching Garen out for next year, so that leaves me to predict that Ashe is potentially Character 5 to come with a never-before-had Freljord-themed stage in Season 3.

That said, I'm going to postulate the character release schedule. Now, before I begin, here's the definition of the word.

The definition of postulate is something I need you to understand because the character release schedule and the characters I'm stating are hypothetical. Let's begin.

Caitlyn came out on January 20 with the launch of Season 1, Ferros Promenade and the console launch. Akali came out on April 7 within Season 1 with Caitlyn. Senna releases in May 12 along with Season 2 and a new stage, which what we know for sure. Katarina releases in July 14 within Season 2 with Senna. Ashe comes out September 1 with the launch of Season 3 and a Freljord-themed stage. And finally, Miss Fortune comes out November 17 within Season 3 with Ashe to round out 2026 and its 17-character roster.

Character roadmap:

Caitlyn + Ferros Promenade - January 20, 2026
Akali - April 7, 2026
Senna + new stage - May 12, 2026
Katarina - July 14, 2026
Ashe + new Freljord-themed stage - September 1, 2026
Miss Fortune - November 17, 2026

And I'm sorry that it had to be all female because Darius, Illaoi and Braum are the sole characters from certain regions in the roster and they are related to the characters I'm predicting, and we never have characters that wield a bow, dual pistols or dual knives in the roster; the following things that are classified as the current roster's missing aesthetics and fighting styles. Like, we know that Katarina and Miss Fortune will be a Rushdown like Ahri, Akali, Vi and Warwick, and Ashe will be a Zoner like Jinx and Caitlyn, but Senna's fighting archetype remains a mystery.

2026 character roster:

Ahri
Akali
Ashe
Blitzcrank
Braum
Caitlyn
Darius
Ekko
Illaoi
Jinx
Katarina
Miss Fortune
Senna
Teemo
Vi
Warwick
Yasuo

Despite the fact that we're getting an odd-numbered character roster of 17 this year because of the extra sixth character coming this year, I'm still going to divide the hypothetical 2026 character roster into the SEGA and Capcom sides across the board and state the key points. The characters I'm predicting are written in bold for clarification. Since 2026 is seeing the odd-numbered character roster of 17 thanks to the extra sixth upcoming character, the Capcom side will be one character behind the number of characters in the SEGA side until the 18th character to launch next year in 2027. Let's get to dividing the roster. We'll start with the SEGA side.

Ahri remains, but Braum, Darius, Illaoi, Vi and Yasuo move and Ashe, Katarina and Senna go with Ahri, Braum, Darius, Illaoi, Vi and Yasuo. The SEGA side has Ahri, Ashe, Braum, Darius, Illaoi, Katarina, Senna, Vi and Yasuo.

Akali, Teemo and Warwick remain, but Blitzcrank, Caitlyn, Ekko, Jinx move and Miss Fortune goes with Akali, Blitzcrank, Caitlyn, Ekko, Teemo, and Warwick. That puts Akali, Blitzcrank, Caitlyn, Ekko, Jinx, Miss Fortune, Teemo and Warwick on the Capcom side.

SEGA side:

Ahri
Ashe
Braum
Darius
Illaoi
Katarina
Senna
Vi
Yasuo

Capcom side:

Akali
Blitzcrank
Caitlyn
Ekko
Jinx
Miss Fortune
Teemo
Warwick

Key points:

Ahri on the SEGA side = NiGHTS
Ashe on the SEGA side = Skies of Arcadia
Darius on the SEGA side = Valkyria Chronicles
Illaoi on the SEGA side = Ooga Booga
Katarina on the SEGA side = Valkyria Chronicles
Yasuo on the SEGA side = Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu's Dororo
Akali on the Capcom side = Onimusha
Blitzcrank on the Capcom side = Mega Man X
Caitlyn on the Capcom side = Alien vs. Predator (Arcade game)
Warwick on the Capcom side = Darkstalkers

So we now have nine characters on the SEGA side and eight characters on the Capcom side in 2026 and key points to highlight the following. I'm agreeing with Illaoi being on the SEGA side because of Ooga Booga, and Caitlyn on the Capcom side because of the Alien vs. Predator arcade game by Capcom.

I am aware that Katarina is the most ambitious character because she was cut during the earlier stage of development, but as I have said before, these are hypothetical. They don't confirm who they are or the order of the character releases. Please understand that.

Here's a look at the things that are coming in 2026. We got 14 things coming in 2026. And you were implying that the part I screencapped makes you think of the mission select screen in 007: Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough because of the placement and backgrounds. We know console launch, arcade skins, the launch celebration event, Ferros Promenade and local duos came out and we got the Spirit Blossom event coming tomorrow, so we can scratch them out.

Now, we're down to seven things on the docket for 2XKO in 2026.

We have two new stages coming out this year; the Blood Moon variant of Spirit Hills, which is coming out in the next patch, likely obtainable by purchasing the premium track of the Battle Pass, and a summer-themed stage that is likely direct-to-store.

We have a summer event coming to have returning summer skins from Alpha Lab 2 and new ones coming in June's patch along with a new summer-themed stage I have already told you about.

What is the Heimerdinger? Uhh, Heimerdinger? What is the humdinger? Well, here it is.

That's right. A new Fuse is coming next month. People are predicting what the new Fuse is gonna be, so I am going to predict what this new Fuse would be. But my prediction comes on two. The new Fuse is either a Fever Fuse or a Teamfight Fuse. The Fuses I'm predicting can provide an emphasis on playing as a duo since they are investing in Duo Play even more. That said, I want to state the similarities and the differences between the hypothetical Fever and Teamfight Fuses. We'll start with the similarities.

Both Fuses:

-An emphasis on playing as a duo
-The point and assist characters are on screen
-Also available to solos so that the solo player controls both characters simultaneously and holds the team button to focus on the point character
-Earning the double down trophy is easier
-Committing a 2XKO is easier and happens more often
-Tagging and assists are disabled

And that's it. These are the similarities between Fever and Teamfight. Now for the differences between these two hypothetical Fuses.

Fever Fuse:

-Makes the point and assist characters on screen right off the bat and for the whole match
-Break and Ultimates remain enabled
-Super gauge buildup remain enabled
-Provides the same level of bonanza as that of the Cross Fever game mode in SEGA vs. Capcom: The Next Level and the Assault Fever game mode in Street Fighter X Tekken when both teams choose this Fuse

Teamfight Fuse:

-Activated by pressing the L, M or H and T simultaneously
-Both teammates require at least one bar of super gauge
-Makes the point and assist characters on screen for a brief time varying by the bars of meter
-The effects rescind immediately when the defender lands their Ultimate on a point or an assist character
-Break and Ultimates are disabled

Then you have the Teamfight Fuse. While it makes both characters on screen and controllable simultaneously only on solos, the effects last depending on the bars of their super gauge they spent with pressing the team and attack buttons simultaneously. But Break and Ultimates are disabled along with tagging and assists. It is similar to the Variable Cross feature in SEGA vs. Capcom.

And finally, the knockout punch as there is another humdinger coming to 2XKO along with a new Fuse...

A Duo Finder is also officially coming to 2XKO next month. This is something that we have been wanting since Alpha Lab 1 and it's finally coming into fruition along with a new Fuse. Of course, by "we," I mean myself and the players who got an invite to Alpha Lab 1. They said that they're going make duos much easier to find and form, so here it is; the upcoming gold standard of finding a partner to form a duo with, a Duo Finder. This will make duos much easier to find and form online, encouraging online duos more than online solos.

But I don't think that the Casual and Ranked lobbies are gonna have the same treatment as private lobbies, with readying up for solo and waiting for a partner to duo before readying up. I think that the Duo Finder gonna work similarly to the matchmaker, but will find you a duo outside of the lobby, so all you have to do is to select the plus button on the client, select Find a Duo and boom, it gives you an available partner to duo with.

The Duo Finder will be the gold standard of making duos much easier to find and form when you don't know which player to duo with. We're using it for not just for purposes of grinding missions that pertain to duos, but for fun also. Emphasis on "fun" because duos are more fun than solos, especially to duos-only tournaments and when the new Fuse can provide an emphasis on duos. Finally, we can no longer be forced to use rocks. This means we will no longer be pressured to send a partner invite to anyone in Casual or Ranked lobbies. A Duo Finder is coming to 2XKO for two reasons.

The first reason is to emphasize Duo Play with duos galore. What this means is that Causal and Ranked lobbies will see a lot of duos, living up to the fact that 2XKO is best played as a duo.

The second reason is to make it easier to complete the duo missions. After the next update, both new and existing players can find a duo with the Duo Finder and start grinding the First Steps mission pertaining to playing five matches as a duo future duo missions on weekly, daily and event missions.

We have two exciting new things coming in the next patch that are met with buzz and excitement. With these two new features, Duo Play is about to be taken to the next level.

Since the roadmap has almost everything planned for 2026, there are more details to be announced and they're ironing out and settling their upcoming patches for the rest of 2026. This means the rest of the things that are coming in the second half of 2026 will be revealed and the roadmap will be updated. Because they have more details to be announced, this is only part one, so expect part two of this post. And I believe that there is a conjunction to the method of revealing the fourth character at the Friday Showcase at Evo 2026. That is revealing the fourth character of the year and updating the roadmap to reveal the rest of the characters and details at the Friday Showcase at Evo.

There are more stuff to be revealed, so I decided to state several things that I want along with a new Fuse and a Duo Finder coming next month.

Custom Lobbies:

Currently, there are private lobbies and they are only for invited players and have a code for players to put in. But we can change that to custom lobbies. That way, they can be both public and private. A custom lobby being public is actually an open lobby, meaning that anyone can join without a code or an invite, especially when it comes to having a 2XKO Slapfest or someting.

Netcode Refactors:

I am sick and tired of seeing them not choosing their characters and stage because of netplay not being stable enough for some players. What can remedy that is online refactors. Notice that online stability has undergone improvements in Skullgirls? I have thought that 2XKO's netplay needs some refactors and improvements so that way, there would be little to no disconnection or network strain, especially on duos.

An In Game Pulse Indicator:

Alpha Lab 2 introduced Pulse Combos in replacement of the Pulse Fuse because they want to use Pulse while having a different Fuse. In the character select screen, you see the icon when Pulse is on. But I think an in game Pulse Combo indicator can make things easy to tell. When they have Pulse on, it can be either the text of the character name colored purple in game and in the versus screen or the Pulse Combo icon at the upper left hand corner of the in game character portrait. But I think the purple text of the character name would suffice for more clarity, like in BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma where the in game character name text is colored green to make it easy to tell if they're using the Stylish Layout, but colored yellow when they're not.

Bottom line, I love seeing those who use Pulse Combos get their chops busted by those who don't use Pulse Combos at all. Since a Duo Finder is coming next month, if it finds me a duo partner who uses Pulse, it's gonna be a one and done. Pulse Combos are indeed only for scrubs, like Modern Controls in Street Fighter 6, the Smart Style in Fatal Fury and the Special Style in Tekken 8. They involve performing auto combos with one button and one button specials with directional influence like in Smash. And not just Smash, but other platform fighters that have the same control scheme like Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and Brawlhalla. That's why we need to use Classic Controls in Street Fighter 6 and the Arcade Style in Fatal Fury.

Not to throw shade at Smash, though because really, I do love Smash in general. But if there was a player who is using Pulse, they will get busted by those who don't use Pulse. However, the scrubs term doesn't just refer to players who use auto combos. It also refers to anyone using cake mix, brownie mix and cookie dough rather than starting from scratch and even players using Dokuro in Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax.

Duo Ultimates:

With the new Fuse that is either the Fever or the Teamfight Fuse and the Duo Finder coming next month to take Duo Play to the next level, I think this can take Duo Play to the max. Have you heard of tag team finishers? Well, here's something that 2XKO can answer with as part of investing in Duo Play even more; Duo Ultimates. They are team supers that allow both teammates to perform their combined Ultimates. They are performed with pressing S1, S2 and T simultaneously when both teammates' super gauge is at lv. 3 since Solo Ultimates are performed by pressing S1 and S2 simultaneously.

However, there is one caveat when it comes to Duo Ultimates. Since Duo Ultimates can spend all three bars of the super gauge for both teammates, instead of being a core feature, Duo Ultimates can be incorporated into the hypothetical Teamfight Fuse since choosing this Fuse grants the ability to make the assist character on screen with the point character for a brief duration that gets longer depending on how many bars of super both teammates have, hence Teamfight, so I'm gonna rename Duo Ultimates to Teamfight Ultimates and that's what they are gonna be called.

The Teamfight Fuse can grant you the ability to spend one bar of the super gauge on each teammate to activate Teamfight Assault and bring the Assist character on screen for seven seconds by pressing any attack button and the team button simultaneously and the ability to spend three bars of the super gauge on each teammate to perform a Teamfight Ultimate by pressing the S1, S2 and the team buttons simultaneously.

When we enter the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, the only 2v2 tag fighter that has team supers was Street Fighter X Tekken. Street Fighter X Tekken has team supers and they are performed with quarter circle towards and medium attack buttons and require three bars of the super gauge, but the assist character follows up with their super after the point character takes action and they share with one bar. It wouldn't make sense for Teamfight Ultimates to have the point character perform an unused move and the assist character follow up with their Ultimate.

There is something that can be done for Teamfight Ultimates in 2XKO. Much more cinematic kick and generic and unique Teamfight Ultimates. Instead of thinking Street Fighter X Tekken, let's think a little more in line with Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2.

Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 introduced 2v2 tag battles and uses tag team ninjutsu that are performed when both teammates' ninjutsu gauge is full, both generic and unique to certain combinations of two certain characters. Both the point and assist characters each have their own ninjutsu gauge. So I think that the Teamfight Ultimates in 2XKO could definetely work similarly to Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2's tag team ninjutsu, but with more cinematic kick into them. Here are some examples of duos and their unique Teamfight Ultimates and a description of how would they unfold below. I may not describe or list them them all, so here they are.

Vi and Caitlyn = Piltover's Finest - Caitlyn binds the opponent with multiple bolas, then Vi rushes in at the opponent.

Yasuo and Akali = Twilight of the Tempest - Akali shrouds the opponent with Twilight Shroud, then Yasuo creates a tornado, combining into a shadow-imbued tornado against the opponent.

Ahri and Akali = Charming Execution - Ahri places her Charm on her opponent, then Akali swoops in while producing Twilight Shroud.

Ekko and Jinx = Shock Therapy - Jinx fires her zap pistol, stunning the opponent, then Ekko brings out his Mega Timewinder and hits it at the opponent.

Vi and Jinx = Sistership

Darius and Yasuo = Hemorhagging Wind

Ahri and Ekko = Foxfire Ball - Ahri charges and pitches her Orb of Deception, then Ekko swings his bat sword and hits the Orb of Deception at the opponent.

Ahri and Yasuo = Foxfire Tempest - Ahri channels her foxfire on Yasuo's wind, then Yasuo flings the foxfire-imbued tornado at the opponent.

These are the examples of duos and their Duo Ultimates. Having these following duos provides unique Teamfight Ultimates as having two characters that don't have dialogues between them in a duo may have generic Teamfight Ultimates in their arsenal, but the Teamfight Fuse is required for them. Maybe the new Fuse can actually be the Teamfight Fuse instead of the Fever Fuse. Heck, we can even see Piltover's Finest together on screen. What a bonanza!

I know I said this before, but I'm gonna say it again. I think God that we didn't take an L like we did with MultiVersus because holy smokes, that would be darning. Talking about Harry Potter. I'm so glad that we have been rewarded for our diligence as fans of 2XKO for letting it thrive. They were waiting for Harry Potter and the game had to be shut down early.

2026 is set to be a huge year for 2XKO as they have a lot of things on the 2026 roadmap and I am already excited for it. We must not spare any of our energy if we don't want 2XKO to die early like MultiVersus did no matter how trash it is.

Joe's Monologues - 4/5/2026

I haven't did a Joe's Monologues for a while. And now, the series is back. Today, we're gonna go over a couple of topics, so without further ado, let's begin.

Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling

We're gonna start with the elephant in the room, Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling. I am in the middle of the game and I have gone this far. I have recorded my gameplay videos in the source of starting my own Let's Play series. The game just blew me away. It given me some serious Paper Mario vibes that the gameplay is similar to that of the first two games of the series that were critically acclaimed. As soon as I finish Bug Fables, it's off to Escape from Ever After and I'll record its gameplay too.

And dang, the Watcher fight almost given me a headache. I lost on my first and second attempts. My first attempt became a failure because I was running low on TP that I should've get to Venus to replinish it. The second attempt also became a failure that I forgot to restock on recovery items. The third attempt became a success because I addressed the flaws by getting Venus to replinish TP and stocking up on healing items at the shop. I guess third time's the charm is what they say.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds

Now let's go on to the next topic about a game that I haven't talked about, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. I have bought the game at a discounted price on the PS5 first. The game blew me away with the gameplay that involves switching courses through the CrossWorlds feature that was met with praise. There are non-Sonic characters that join the race. They got Joker from Persona 5, Hatsune Miku and a bunch of collaborations. They also have non-SEGA collaborations that are paid DLC. They are all great, but do you know what would I like to see in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds? A Simpsons pack.

We have the SpongeBob SquarePants pack and the TMNT and Avatar packs are coming soon and Fortnite had a Simpsons mini season, so what we like to see is a Simpsons pack that contains Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa as playable characters with voice acting and a lot of stuff like decals, effects and Springfield as a playable track.

Why am I suggesting the Simpsons pack to come to Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds comes with two reasons. The first reason is to forward Fortnite's Simpsons mini season. The mini season was met with buzz and excitement that they would petition to make it permanent and it's a sign of nostalgia that the series' games are stuck in retro consoles and never been remade for modern consoles.

The second reason is to convince developers to bring the Simpsons back into the gaming realm with the rumored remaster of the Simpsons Hit and Run and make new games. They can take from what they learned from the original developers and apply it to future Simpsons games. A Simpsons pack with Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa as playable characters and Springfield as a playable track in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds sounds like a good feat to me, especially  because of Road Rage. It can pave the way for a new kart racer based on the Simpsons. But SEGA requires permission from Fox for that.

But that's not the only thing to say in this matter. As soon as the Steam version goes on sale, I am buying it for free online multiplayer. PC versions of games offer free online multiplayer on both free and paid games. But console versions require you to pay a subscription to play online on paid games, not free-to-play games.

2XKO

And last but not least, 2XKO. This one is gonna be a doozy to talk about because we finally know when Akali is coming out; April 7, and it's not that long. Her moves are pretty insane. Development notes show that Akali is the fastest character in 2XKO, but her health pool is the lowest, deemed as risky and comes with Twilight Shroud, a unique mechanic Akali has to give her moves some buff.

Let me tell you; Akali is the character I wanted and theorized since they knew that Akali is the most important and ambitious character the roster needs and her theme is on point, deemed the best character theme that makes me wonder if she's like a pseudo Naruto character since she is actually getting her Naruto palette. See, Akali is Japanese like Yasuo, especially with Ionia being known for fame.

We had to wait until April for Akali's release because they had to nerf Ekko and Yasuo enough to create a balanced and healthy competitive meta and fix screen tearing on console in 1.1.3. Now that they got all of that done, with black smoke galore, kunai and Kama, her portable scythe, Akali is ready for battle in 1.1.5.

But Akali is not the only thing that is coming in 1.1.5 because local duos is also coming. It allows a player to look for a partner to duo up with in real life and play on the same console against players online and it's something people wanted. Which is nice, but it's only just a taste of how would they usurp investing in Duo Play even more.

After Akali, it's off to waiting for Senna, who will come out with a new stage in Season 2. Thankfully, we're not being in the Senna waiting room or having an odd number of characters any longer because it's April and she's coming out on May 12 and that's when Season 2 will launch looking at the Season 1 countdown. Like, we know that Senna will swing her projectile weapon like Caitlyn does since she's a Marksman, come with a unique resource that fills up when collecting Mist and transform into a Wraith when she collects enough Mist like Warwick does with his Bloodlust gauge that fills up with his S2 specials, but her archetype remains a mystery. Her full trailer will drop one week before her release.

Since Evo is almost here, maybe they can announce the 15th and 16th characters after the Senna trailer at Evo Japan. They have to because Evo is the most prestigious event that has reveals, right? I want to see who they are. After all, 2XKO needs to have more characters and having a tag fighter with a small roster is a sign of claustrophobia and repetitiveness, especially in the competitive scenes. But having 16 characters this year is less repetitive and it's the number of characters X-Men vs. Street Fighter has.

Surely, Akali's debut in 2XKO could mean that Katarina could be the fourth character of the year to fall within Season 2 with Senna and that's what we came for since she was Thanos-snapped from the game's earlier stage of development. Now, I know that people are gonna complain when the most ambitious character like Katarina is scrapped. "Hello?! The red-haired assassin of Noxus?!" "For the love of God, Katarina was itching to be in the roster!" I'm telling you, Arucelli's work on her concept art and submission to designers for her redesign stage confirms that our red-haired assassin of Noxus is still planned.

That aside, this brings me to my point. Remember what I said that Kennen and Miss Fortune are potentially making their debut to 2XKO this year? Since the seasonal structure is going to have three seasons that each come with a new stage, I don't think that Kennen nor Miss Fortune is gonna be the 16th character since Season 3 will have a new stage.

But you see, in private, I thought to myself that I planned to stream both MultiVersus and Team Sonic Racing, but that will never happen because MultiVersus died after five seasons with the intention of being left offline for the forseeable future and I found Sonic Racing CrossWorlds much more fun, so I think I'll stream both 2XKO and Sonic Racing CrossWorlds on my computer in hopes of drawing more viewers.

Conclusion:

It has been a while since my previous Joe's Monologues. I hope to see you in the next one.

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 and changed how we play games forever, the answer, in my opinion, would be violent video games. If you go back to the beginning of manufacturing 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, 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, living up to the "Genesis does what Nintendon't" tagline.

But the first Mortal Kombat wasn't the only one that was graphically violent to be a part of the hearing because another game is also facing backlash upon its home console release, Night Trap. Night Trap is an interactive movie game that 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.

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. The hearing made calls to establish the rating system in North America, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).

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. The Videogame Rating Council was eventually retired in favor of the ESRB. This shows us that the ESRB tends to stick their ratings on the front of each box to make it easy to tell what game is rated depending on the content; something that the MPA doesn't do.

I know that some people would never agree with the ESRB because of putting their ratings on each box, but the ESRB comes in handy. It shows parents that the game has mature content not suitable for chldren because without it, we'll never know what content the game has. And there is one thing I like about the ESRB; the Rating Pending (RP) icon. When games get announced, they carry the RP rating that serves as a temporary placeholder rating. It only appears on marketing, advertising and promotional materials that are related to games that are expected to carry an ESRB rating. Once assigned a final ESRB rating, the RP rating gets replaced by a game's rating.

The RP rating comes with the content warning labelled as, "May contain content inappropriate for children." The warning message shows that the game may have content that are inappropriate for younger audiences. When you see the content warning at the beginning of an game's initial announcement trailer, it indicates that the game is likely to contain content inappropriate for younger audiences that may recieve a T or M rating. But when you don't see the content warning at the beginning of the game's announcement trailer, it indicates that the game is likely to have content suitable for younger audiences that could lead to an E or E10+ rating.

In summary, seeing the content warning at the beginning of a game's announcement trailer indicates that the game is likely to recieve a T or M rating and not seeing the content warning indicates that the game is likely to recieve an E or E10+ rating.

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.

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 published by WB Games and developed under the NetherRealm Studios umbrella to return to its roots of a 2D fighter, which of course, retained the series' controversy regarding graphic violence and marks of start of strong language where you will hear bad words from certain characters.

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. Now, this is a bit of a term as it's basically coined to explain the "May contain content inappropriate for children" content warning to warn anyone there may be content that are not suitable for children that may lead to a T or M rating.

Violence is something that has zero-tolerance in real life, so let me give you an example. I'll talk about school violence. It is essentially an offense that leads to suspensions or expulsions, except against bullies. Basically hitting others that lead to consequences and it's something that must be avoided.It pretty much lives up to the fact of getting a D grade or lower and getting torn up. In fact, it happened back in the day. But violence in video games is a staple in the industry today that it has much more tolerance than violence in real life. I'm not saying that violence has some tolerant. It has no tolerant in real life because of wars that can't be declared. But violence in video games has a lot of tolerant and that's something the ESRB leans heavily into.

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 franchise 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 genuinely don't star the Nintendo characters that I bought on Steam? Let's jump right in.

Today, I'm talking about one of the franchises I haven't talked about in a while that became an inspiration for the two games, Paper Mario. So, Paper Mario has quite a dedicated fan base, especially to the RPG genre. 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 to change up the genre to the action-adventure format. 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 nevertheless due to continuing the action-adventure format from both previous games.

When Nintendo confirms a new game, they try something new and take liberty of the story, characters and gameplay. However, none of the three games since Sticker Star were nowhere near as good as the first two games of the series according to the fans. They have all been met with backlash and disdain. The only conception is that the first two games were better than later games since Sticker Star.

But what I like to also talk about now, though, is not one, but two Paper Mario-esque games that I have bought on Steam and both of them have blew my mind. They 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 to the Everlasting Sapling, the treasure that can grant immortality and permanent youth for those who ate its leaves.

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.

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 fights his arch-enemy that is an evil dragon named Tinder. Flynt has came across something weird when he stormed Tinder's castle. It was converted into corporate offices after the company intervened. The company is called Ever After Inc.

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 also 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. The best part is, I can switch between windowed and fullscreen on Escape from Ever After..

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 gosh darn 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 I couldn't decide which game to play first and let anyone know I am acting nutty.

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 84 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 favorites 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 between both 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, not background noises like the fan noises and my mother calling me, especially when I'm recording. Now, if a third Paper Mario-inspired game is in production, will it be themed around superhero comics, Greek Mythology or whatever theme? I don't know and I don't care. We like to see 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.

I'm on the verge of playing through Bug Fables and recording my gameplay videos and sharing them on my separate gaming channel where you'll find my gameplay videos and clips at. I'm starting my own Let's Play series and on a journey to become a Let's Player like other YouTubers before me.

Both games' gameplay is identical to the first two Paper Mario games, 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 received critical acclaim with to take the original foundation and amplify and multiply it, not break and change it by switching it to the action-adventure genre like they did with the disdained trio of games in the action-adventure genre 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.