When Radiant Entertainment was acquired by Riot Games all those years ago and tasked with making a fighting game, I would’ve expected the League of Legends creator to have immediately established that it must be set in the universe of Runeterra. Well, I thought wrong. It turns out that Radiant had the opportunity to create whatever kind of fighting game it wanted with its upcoming 2XKO, and that includes having the freedom to set it in a brand new universe. However, Radiant co-founders, twin brothers, and fighting game legends Tom and Tony Cannon have revealed that despite Riot not forcing them down the path to Runeterra, it was an easy decision for them to make.
It seems unthinkable now that 2XKO wasn’t initially forced into being a League of Legends-adjacent project right from the start. With the exception of Valorant, every other game in Riot’s catalog uses the LoL IP, and the fighting game appears to be doing an amazing job at depicting and enhancing some of its iconic characters. In trailers and alpha builds of the game, we’ve already seen 2XKO characters such as Jinx, Darius, and Ekko all shine.
However, in a new interview discussing their fighting game legacy and what’s to come in 2XKO, the Cannon brothers look back on the beginnings of the project and confirm that the decision was theirs to be in the League of Legends universe.
“We had absolute freedom to make whatever game we wanted when we joined up with Riot,” Tom Cannon, the executive producer on 2XKO, tells A14Z Games. “We chose to be in the League IP because like fighting games are these character-based videogames where you really put yourself in a character and you need to find a character that really resonates with you. The League IP is so broad – it’s a great match for a fighting game.
“It’s been a challenge, but it’s been pretty exciting, to see how we could take characters [from] a different genre that people have been invested in for more than ten years and translate them to a fighting game. Totally different mechanics, but [they] still have to feel like themselves. Like when we have a Darius main come in and play our game and say ‘That felt like Darius!’ – that’s the best.”
Following the release of the interview, the 2XKO account confirmed that players won’t be hearing much about the 2v2 brawler for a little while, but that it would resurface with an update in February and that “you’ll see what we’ve been up to” in March. This could be hinting at another playtest as Radiant and Riot continue to ramp things up ahead of the 2XKO release date. Until then, here are some other incredible multiplayer games to get locked into instead.
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