League of Legends Fighter 2XKO Bolts From Beta in Two Weeks, Locks October Early Access
With early performance holding strong, the studio is greenlighting the next phase of the game’s launch.
Riot is not wasting time. 2XKO, the League of Legends fighting game spinoff, has only been in closed beta for two weeks and it already has an early access date: October 7. Yes, the beta and early access swap places the same day.
So what is actually happening
Executive producer Tom Cannon says the plan changed because the test did what it needed to do. The closed beta will wrap on October 7, and early access will kick off immediately after. According to Cannon, the team used the limited beta window to hammer on the boring-but-critical stuff: global server rollout, matchmaking tuning, and squashing bugs to make sure the launch pipeline holds up.
"Everything you get in early access will be yours to keep."
That last part is key: once early access starts, no more account wipes. Progress and purchases will carry forward.
Why the sudden jump
In short: the infrastructure checks came back clean enough to move. Cannon explains they were basically pressure-testing the backend across regions. With matchmaking behaving and stability looking solid, Riot feels good about pushing to the next phase instead of dragging out the closed beta.
The long road from Project L
If this feels fast, it is only because the last six years were slow. 2XKO first surfaced in 2019 under the codename Project L, then quietly disappeared while the team kept tinkering. Cannon recently told Edge they put the project back into R&D after that initial reveal, which explains the long silence between announcement and this September beta.
Director Shaun Rivera, for his part, is not thinking small. He wants 2XKO standing shoulder to shoulder with the genre heavyweights — as in, competing for attention next to Street Fighter. Ambitious, but if you are going to build a tag fighter in 2024, you might as well aim high.
What early access is for
Early access is where they start dialing in the live game. Expect seasonal systems to come online and get tuned: the Battle Pass, Ranked play, and balance passes. The idea is to iterate quickly while your progress sticks.
Key beats at a glance
- 2019: Game revealed as Project L, then sent back into R&D.
- September 9: Closed beta goes live, focusing on servers, matchmaking, and stability.
- October 7: Closed beta ends and early access begins the same day; no more content resets from here on out.
We will see how it holds up when the doors open for real on October 7. If the beta was the shakedown cruise, this is the first real voyage.