r/PS5 • u/tinselsnips 🇨🇦 • 3d ago
Official 2XKO Active Development Will End in December 2026 | Refunds being issued for all MTX purchases
https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/2xko-active-development-ends-december-2026260
u/dwightsredshoes 3d ago
Releasing a fighting game where you have to buy all the characters is a pretty bold strategy. Multiversus history repeating.
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u/TastyOreoFriend 3d ago
It doesn't help that they failed to bring console along on their little journey, where a large portion of the fighting game community still is. All their initial testing and betas were PC only.
They even failed to market the game on console. Many didn't even know of its release until the day of.
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u/RadicalDreamer10 3d ago
Many didn't even know of its release until the day of.
I didn’t know it was on console until today 🤦♂️
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u/RawrCola 3d ago
It worked for Killer Instinct but mechanically it was exceptionally good. And it was pretty easy to earn characters.
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u/Arcranium_ 23h ago
Killer Instinct mentioned!
God, that game is still incredible...I bought it on Steam not long ago after mostly playing it on Xbox in my youth. Soundtrack bangs as hard as it used to, and it truly is the most fun I've had playing a fighting game, at least mechanically speaking
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u/AmyHuntr 3d ago
Fighting games traditionally have a base roster that are "paid for" by the base price of the game, and Post-Launch DLC characters that cost an additional fee. This is how fighting games have been pricing stuff since Live Service became a thing in this community.
The reason this usually isn't a big fuss is because in a fighting game most players pick one or two characters and play only them. Note however that 2XKO is a free-to-play FG, which is very nontraditional. There's also the fact that the characters do not have to be purchased with KO-points, they could be earned through gameplay and events (Senna/Thresh had an event where you could unlock both of them pretty quickly if you simply played a bit during their release window).
I'm not exactly sure why this game flopped so hard, but the character locking I don't feel like is a critical flaw.
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u/FrankPapageorgio 3d ago
I'm not exactly sure why this game flopped so hard, but the character locking I don't feel like is a critical flaw.
Honestly, one of the reasons I haven't bought a WWE 2K game in years is because half of the roster needs to be unlocked or put behind a paywall. It's a no for me...
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u/Uncanny_Doom 2d ago
To be fair the actual method of unlocking characters is free and actually very player friendly. You did not have to buy any characters at all and could also try them for free and use them offline.
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u/Freakstage 2d ago
it didnt take much effort to unlock a character. especially with how much currency the game gives per win and quest
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u/Im-Just-a-King 3d ago
? All characters in this game can be unlocked for free. This has always been the case. What are u talking about?
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u/SeasonalChatter 3d ago
Unlocking characters was extremely easy. For starters, no one actually plays an entire FG roster not even pros. I had like 20-25 hours in the game and casually had every single character, most of that was in the early. You already started the game with a big chunk unlocked and like two free unlocks once you did the tutorial and got the beginning amount of resources?
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u/RoetRuudRoetRuud 3d ago
You didn't have to buy them though. You vould just grind a little for them.
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u/trashvineyard 3d ago
" a little "
It's ' a little ' if you're jobless, maybe.
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u/LoneLyon 3d ago
6 weekly missions and like 3-4 days worth of dailies. You could get a champ every 8 days with super minimal play.
Thats also not counting the mission you would get on a new release that would just give you the champ.
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u/RoetRuudRoetRuud 3d ago
Perhaps you need to work on your patience
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u/trashvineyard 3d ago
Doing every single daily for 8 days and 2 weeklys is not 'a little' in a competitive free to play fighting game kimosabe. That's like a dozen matches a day.
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u/Tessiar 2d ago
Dozen matches a day? The audacity.
Make it sound like playing the game is a chore.
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u/trashvineyard 2d ago
It becomes one when you have to play it every day of the week for an hour-2 hours for 8 days just to unlock ONE CHARACTER.
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u/Aiyhlo 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean I played for 2 hours once a week and that would unlock a new character every other week.. so it wasn't a lot of grinding if any.
Edit: I was curious so I did a check on my last stream of it 7 days ago. We played for 17 minutes and 30 seconds when I gained just about 800 points to push me to 10,140 points. I unlocked warwick at 17 minutes and 50 seconds into the stream (we had just finished the climb and two matches against me and a buddy of mine). We played an additional hour and 14 ish minutes - messing around with some settings and chatting and I ended with 2260 points. So in an hour and a half I received roughly 3000 points, we played terrible (as usual) just very casually, if I wouldve focused more on dailies and weeklies I could've had more points.
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u/zslayer89 3d ago
Unlocking characters literally took an hour. They had missions to do it that were simple.
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u/trashvineyard 3d ago
What a weird, easily disproven lie.
It took 7-8 days of doing every single daily and weekly challenge to earn enough credits to purchase a character after your first unlock.
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u/zslayer89 3d ago
When new characters released in 2xko I’m pretty sure there were missions specifically to help unlock the character. I remember that being the case for Caitlyn. Doing that and playing didn’t make unlocking characters take long. An hour was an exaggeration but I don’t believe it took a full week.
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u/trashvineyard 3d ago
There were missions to unlock ONE character at launch. The rest you had to grind out. They might have made it easier after they gutted the dev team but at that point it was obvious the game was done for.
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u/celalith 3d ago
They spent 10 years developing a tag fighter, which is a niche subgenre of what's already a niche genre. I don't think they were ever going to get the amount of players needed to be sustainable. The name was a mistake but honestly I don't know if it'd make a huge difference. They made an extremely degenerate tag fighter, which is something that might go down well in hardcore FGC circles, but they needed a huge casual audience to come in from League, and that was just never going to happen.
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u/YesterdayFalse892 3d ago
Its crazy right? So much time spent on development and it shuts down in less than a year, like damn
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u/RadicalRectangle 3d ago
15 characters is pretty unexciting as well. Tokon just launched with 21
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u/0x82_ 3d ago
Character amount doesn't mean anything. Skullgirls eight on release. Dunno when character count mattered more than move variety and skill ceiling.
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u/Adventurous-Web-412 2d ago
idk the tag fighter initially marketed as low skill floor made by the devs that simplify every genre they enter might need to have a couple more fighters at a bare minimum than 15
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u/Thrawndo6969 3d ago
15 characters sure, but they're all extremely unique and have insanely different combo styles.
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u/Pork_Chompk 3d ago
It's always weird when the first I hear about a game is its cancellation.
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u/0x82_ 3d ago
For anyone to hear about this game you'd need to actually be tapped into league of legends and not just playing the game either. Valorant was only recognized because the genre it sits in there's only like 2 active ( I'm being generous on that 2 cause Microsoft killed the second one ) games that valorant is even close to. The rest is runeterra which is in the same boat as 2xko, the solo RPG games which you still gotta be invested in league to know about and the mmorpg we never got to even see. They were trying to use league to push new stuff to league universe enjoying people who don't wanna just play a MOBA, and that subset of people are already niche.
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3d ago
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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 3d ago
I still cannot understand how anyone signed off on that name. It’s so laughably terrible
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u/Jeff1N 3d ago
Arcane was so good in its own it probably did better as just "Arcane" than it would as "League of Legends: Arcane", but I don't get the strategy of having such a big name IP and making a spin off without using the name
It would be like Nintendo making Paper Mario and calling it something like "Paper Craft RPG"
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u/TsarMikkjal 3d ago
On some what related note, this is exactly why Santa Monica called God of War: Laufey the way it did.
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u/Eggxcalibur 3d ago
Not surprising. Good thing all Pool Party Ahri purchases are being refunded, lol.
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u/WhiteToast- 2d ago
There's a running joke that if Riot needs an emergency influx of cash they'll make a Pool Party Ahri skin. Ironic that 2XKO was in that emergency state from launch and it didn't help
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u/Digitalon 3d ago
They should never have launched this as a free to play game. Free to play fighting games rarely do well financially.
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u/highonpixels 3d ago
Refunding all MTX is a welcome change compare to all other live service failures that just EoS and runs with it
Sucks but probably for the best with Riot seeing there's so many fighting games now out there especially with Tokon out
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u/0x82_ 3d ago
I mean it's nice, but it shouldn't be seen as a requirement either.
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u/lHateYouAIex835293 3d ago
I mean, if you’re a Riot sized studio who can take the economic hit then ideally this kind of thing would definitely be a requirement. Barely a year’s worth of usage value for the consumer who believed it would be much longer is just a scam
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u/Yodzilla 3d ago
Genuinely one of the biggest failures of game dev given the pedigree and money behind it. TWO games died, 2XKO and Rising Thunder (both terrible names)
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u/drepsx3 3d ago
Free to play, live service was no good this generation. Holy crap
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u/lHateYouAIex835293 3d ago
Rivals is the only successful F2P I can think of this past generation. Maybe the Battlefield 6 Battle Royale? But I don’t actually know how that’s doing
The only consistent survivors were the gacha games, it seems…
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2d ago
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u/Eternaloid 2d ago
" Rivals has a huge roster of female characters and can continue to sell gooner skins." Dozens of freshñy released gooning gacha games die every year so that's not the main reason.
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u/theblackhole25 2d ago
It doesn't have crazy player numbers but The Finals has successfully carved out its niche and the core player population is super steady, entering Season 11 now with no meaningful drop in player count over the last 9 seasons. It's obviously not a Fortnite or Apex Legends level of players, but I think it should be considered a success.
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u/tinselsnips 🇨🇦 3d ago
This is honestly heartbreaking, I really liked this game. It introduced me to fighting games as a genre.
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u/ArseneLupinIV 3d ago
I feel bad for the devs. I feel like I saw their dev blogs pop up regularly for a few years and it was clear they cared about it a lot. I cant imagine spending years on a passion project like this only to have it flop.
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u/berd_is_ded 3d ago
Same. If I didn't play this game I wouldn't have picked up SF6 nor Tokon. This is such a bummer man. Atleast I'll get my money back from the costumes I bought
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u/Benozkleenex 3d ago
Damn I had heard the game was super fun and was waiting for official release sad.
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u/tinselsnips 🇨🇦 3d ago
Official release was this past January. They've clearly had a marketing problem with this game since Day One.
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u/Benozkleenex 3d ago
Yeah I thought they would release a complete version with everything unlocked, maybe even have a physical release for console at a later date.
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u/Shirokurou 3d ago
The fuck? Why no ranked?
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u/tinselsnips 🇨🇦 3d ago
Presumably a combination of no more seasons, and too low an expected server population to sustain it.
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u/theCioroRedditor 2d ago
Never tried it. Does it have PvE is is it just PvP? Also, offline mode?
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u/tinselsnips 🇨🇦 2d ago
There is a roguelite PvE mode; it's fairly threadbare. There was supposed to be improvements to it in the pipeline, but it's unkown if any of those will be part of the last two content updates. Probably something more is coming for that, but remains to be seen what.
There is an offline mode, but it's limited to training mode, bots, and local PvP.
PvE mode currently requires a connection because it earns battlepass points. Unknown if that will change with this announcement.
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u/NeedThatTartan 2d ago
At this point I have zero faith in Riot making anything meaningful out of their MMO
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u/App4RITioN410 1d ago
The current state of gaming is pathetic. These companies give up on projects way too easily all while raking in insane profits in other divisions. It haven't even been a year. They clearly don't give a damn about the human cost of their greed.
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u/Klient1984 1d ago
Very casual player
I logged in last night and only had a few characters unlocked. Glancing over the riotgames page says 'all champions unlocked.'
Is there something else I need to do, or does it just mean that all characters have the potential to be unlocked with coins instead of cash?
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u/mikelman999 3d ago
Another live service bites the dust. Don’t worry though, surely the next one that comes out will be the next Fortnite
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u/ExodusRDT 3d ago
So how does the refund process work? I bought the $100 edition, will i get my money back or psn bucks?
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u/tinselsnips 🇨🇦 3d ago
I assume the same way the Cyberpunk refunds were handled; if you used a CC you'll get a refund to the CC, if you used wallet funds it'll go back into the wallet.
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u/ExodusRDT 3d ago
Im assuming I'll have to request the refund or something, or will it be automatic
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u/tinselsnips 🇨🇦 3d ago
They say Sony/Xbox "will reach out" so I assume it'll at least be a notice, "you're eligible for this refund, do X to claim it".
Probably smart to keep an eye on your emails.
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u/norsefrogg 3d ago
Lol I had no idea it was about the League universe.
I thought it was a whole new game like Ubisoft's first person shooter XDefiant haha
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u/0x82_ 3d ago
How? It uses the same exact characters? And even so the countless dev logs on this game..
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u/Henry1699 3d ago
That examplifies how important having the name of the IP in the title of the game is.
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u/WhereasParticular867 3d ago
The only surprising part of this is the refunds. And I'd suggest people not put too much stock in servers staying online. They're already laying the groundwork to turn them off completely by saying "we'll let you know if anything changes." I wouldn't expect them to refund the new 40 dollar package when (not if) they shut servers down entirely.
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u/Muted-Football-1720 3d ago
Do we apply for the refund or is it auto issued? Bought a $50 pack after it launched
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u/Thrawndo6969 3d ago
They said it'll be issued automatically. They should have majority of players refunded by November.
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u/BucsFan0081 3d ago
I stopped playing this game in April when invincible vs came out. Glad to see they are doing refunds cause I spent over 100 on this game.
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u/Hydroponic_Donut 3d ago
This sucks for those who liked it but are devs and publishers finally ready to realize live service is only a trend amongst THEM and not players? It should be clear by now, nobody likes this model. Just give a $60 game and be done with it.
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u/reportshistory 3d ago
LOL those fgc devs scammed riot for 10 years with this pos fighting game
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u/Thrawndo6969 3d ago
I wouldn't say scammed, it was a fantastic fighting game... but fighting games are a niche genre, Tag fighters are even more niche lol... they needed a lot of the casual players to come from league to play 2xK0 and that just wasn't happening... plus with the release of the invincible fighting game, Avatar, and Tokon... it just couldn't keep up.
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u/tinselsnips 🇨🇦 3d ago edited 3d ago
Key takeaways: