After years of speculation and fanatical guess work from the community, we finally know how many champions will be in 2XKO at launch. Ten playable characters will be present when the game finally comes out some time this year.
In a dev Q&A hosted in the official 2XKO discord following yesterday’s dev diary, several staff from the 2XKO team responded to community questions left unanswered. In response to a query regarding the launch roster, game director Shaun Rivera spilled the beans on the final figure.
“We will have 10 playable champions at launch. We know it is a smaller number than you would expect, but when faced with a trade-off of including even more champions resulting in delaying the release date vs getting it into your hands sooner, we are excited about the latter.
“We also believe that experiencing these champions through solo/duo play via a number of different fuses provide a lot for folks to dig into early on. The fact that we are a live service game means that it will only get better from there via new champion releases and gameplay updates.”
It is certainly a small number, especially when compared to the game’s peers in the genre. However, as Shaun states, it’s entirely possible that the Fuse system will help keep the game fresh despite this lesser scope, given that each drastically alters the way the game is played. Plus, we’ve little information at all on the post-launch release schedule. If 2XKO can match the pace that other developers like Capcom, Bandai Namco, etc have when it comes to releasing new champions, maybe this is a flaw that’ll fade away in good time.
For those not keeping track, now that we know 10 champions are coming on launch, that means we’ve got three reveals left before the game is released proper. Now, one can be expected at Evo this August. That’s a safe bet, given Riot has revealed Yasuo and Braum around this event over the past two years. As for the other two reveals and when they’ll come, it’s harder to predict.
And who will they be? We know Katarina exists in this weird amalgamated form right now, used as a testing dummy for mechanics and special moves that have warped her far from what you’d expect from her. But, given that info was released by the team at Evo last year, maybe she’s been fixed up to a degree where she’s ready for the launch roster. The others are total question marks, but I’m hoping for at least one weirdo. We’ve seen a lot of “poster” champions hit the 2XKO roster and I’d like at least one Fiddlesticks, Reksai, Skarner, etc.
What do you think of this roster number? Is it enough, or are you left wanting more? Let us know below!
