This article summarizes the experience and observations from a player who participated in 2XKO's second Alpha Lab test (Alpha Lab 2), covering positives regarding the game's visuals and monetization, as well as core frustrations surrounding defense and lobby design.
Alpha Lab 2 Context and Visual State
The Alpha Lab 2 test was a much smaller scale playtest, running primarily over a single weekend, with a limited number of invited players. The reviewer was able to play non-stop and reached the Challenger rank.
Positive Impressions:
- The game's UI and overall appearance look "very good" and are in a "very close to finished state".
- The overall presentation, including the way everything is handled, is very clear, leading the reviewer to give the UI an A+ rating.
- If players care about the characters from League of Legends, they will likely enjoy playing them in 2XKO. The game itself "plays very well" and "feels very satisfying".
Monetization and Progression Systems
2XKO is a free-to-play game and must generate revenue. The game utilizes what the reviewer considers a "pretty healthy monetization model".
- Cosmetics: The game features a "pretty cool battle pass," finisher screens, skins, and chromas. The skins look "very good".
- Store Model: The store operates as a standard free-to-play model, offering bundles and allowing purchases using either in-game currency or premium currency for premium cosmetics. Participants in Alpha Lab were given enough currency to buy two or three skins.
Champion Mastery
There are individual progression systems for each champion. Mastery of a champion is tracked (e.g., Braum Mastery Level 29). This mastery system unlocks very specific items, including:
- Avatar items
- Player cards
- Taunts
A discrepancy was noted where the reviewer played two characters (Braum and Darius) for the exact same amount of time, yet Braum’s mastery level (29) was more than two and a half times higher than Darius’s (12), suggesting the challenge tracking might need retooling before release.
Gameplay Changes and Core Frustrations
Combo Length and Damage
In Alpha Lab 2, the team made changes to reduce the duration of combat sequences.
- Combo length overall is down.
- Combos are shorter but still deal a similar amount of damage.
- The reviewer feels that shorter combos, while not necessarily a selling point for them personally, will make the game "a little bit easier for newer players to jump into".
Defensive Issues and Match Pacing
A major frustration for the reviewer was the strength of defensive mechanics.
- Defense is "way too strong now".
- New defensive tools were added, such as forward roll and back roll, which were likely intended to mitigate the strength of set play seen in Alpha Lab 1 (especially with characters like Yasuo, Ekko, and Ari).
- Despite a 2-minute round timer, the high defensive capability resulted in "tons of timeouts". For example, a tournament's Grand Finals, which involved two best-of-five series, lasted nearly one hour.
Fuse Viability and Diversity
The issue of non-viable Fuses (playstyle modifiers) carried over from Alpha Lab 1 to Alpha Lab 2.
- The developers position Fuses as a way to create variety despite a small character roster.
- Alpha Lab 1 had five Fuses, but two of them (Fury and Pulse) were basically irrelevant, leaving only Two Exists, Freestyle Tag, and Double Down as viable options.
- Alpha Lab 2 replaced Fury and Pulse with Juggernaut and Sidekick. However, if Juggernaut and Sidekick are intended mostly to help players learn the game, this still leaves the game with only three playable fuses.
- With a small roster (7 characters in the Alpha Lab, 10 planned for release), having only two or three viable Fuses significantly limits the variety and combinations available to players.
Lobby System Criticism
The reviewer was critical of using a lobby system for Ranked play.
- While 2XKO has "one of the best lobbies in any fighting game ever," using it for competitive ranked play feels like a "weird choice".
- This structure leads to players facing the same person repeatedly and, critically, allows players to dodge opponents because they can see who they are about to play before the match starts.
Development Status
The development team has committed to a 2025 release. The reviewer expressed a strong desire for the game to be released soon, regardless of remaining balance issues, as it has been in development for almost 10 years. The reviewer believes 2XKO will be the fighting game they spend "by far the most time playing after it actually comes out".