As a 2v2 tag team fighter, that’s a title that maybe seems a bit too literal – like renaming Call of Duty to Military Gun Shooter or something – but name aside, the fighter is continuing to look promising, from its core 2v2 structure to the gorgeous visual aesthetic, which is on full display in its newest trailer. Check it out below.

Meanwhile, Riot Games has also finally officially announced a release window for the long-in-development title. 2XKO will launch sometime in 2025 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The developer has also confirmed it plans to release playable demos of the game “throughout the year”, starting with Evo Japan in April.

As champ designer Caroline Montano notes, there are three kinds of attacks – Light, Medium and Heavy. These can be modified with directional input, like Down-Forward and Heavy, for launching an opponent for air combos. You also have the S1 and S2 buttons for Special Moves (also modified with directional input). By pressing down twice and either S1 or S2, you can use a Level 1 Ultimate as a combo finisher, consuming one Ultimate Meter bar.

Press both S1 + S2 for a Level 2 Cinematic Ultimate that does more damage (but consumes two bars of Ultimate Meter). As for defenses, you can block by pressing block, but pressing Forward + Light + Medium after blocking an attack executes a Pushblock (which costs one meter). Pressing Back with Light + Forward performs a Retreating Guard, while Light + Heavy executes a Parry.

Parry costs one meter, but successfully parrying refunds it and executes a shockwave to open your opponent up to damage. You can also press S1 or S2 with the Team Button for a Dynamic Save from a teammate (even if they’re K.O’d). If that weren’t enough, there’s the Fuse System which adds all kinds of tactics, like 2X Assist for back-to-back Assists from a teammate or Double Down to use both characters’ Level 1 Ultimate.

Check it out below. Project L doesn’t have a release date or platforms, so stay tuned for more details.

Yasuo specializes in sword strikes and wind attacks, with lead champion designer Alex Jaffe noting his mix-ups and technical combos. Along with Yasuo, EVO 2023, attendees can try out Darius, Ekko and Ahri from August 4th to 6th. Darius is more of a mid-range fighter who deals huge damage and inflicts wounds.

Ekko can rewind time, making it difficult to punish or block him. Ahri is a rushdown fighter using Foxfire to attack from multiple angles. Other heroes like Jinx and Illaoi are also in the works and have unique play styles and identities.

Project L doesn’t have a release date or platforms yet. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

With Duo Play, teams of two can queue up for Project L matches online against other pairs of players, as well as solo players who would prefer to play both characters by themselves in a more traditional fighting game manner. Duo Play is quite unique, with the last mainstream fighting game to include a similar way of playing being 2012’s Street Fighter X Tekken.

The dev diary also gives us quite a good look at the gameplay in Project L, showing off characters like Ahri, Darius, and Ekko in action. The video also also goes in-depth into its Fuse System, which allows players to get access to different kinds of bonus mechanics for the match.

Project L doesn’t yet have a release date, but is slated to get a playtest soon. Earlier dev diaries have shown off various aspects of the game before, including its tag system.

As spotted over on Reddit, Project L’s senior director and executive producer Tom Cannon recently confirmed on Discord that the fighter won’t be getting any updates at Evo. That said, more details on the game are still going to be shared later in the year, though there’s no word yet on exactly when that will happen.

Interestingly, Cannon also went on to confirm that Project L is still “very much” a work-in-progress, before adding that it was unveiled as early as it was (which is much earlier than fighting games usually get unveiled) “because we really value the feedback we’re getting from each update”.

In December, Riot shared a new development diary on Project L that covered the game’s core gameplay and tag mechanics.

Meanwhile, fans of fighting games still have plenty to look forward to over the course of the coming months, thanks to the likes of Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Mortal Kombat 12, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, and more.

STREET FIGHTER 6

Obviously, we have to start fight Street Fighter 6. Capcom’s legendary fighting series will be back in June with a new mainline instalment, and everything that we’ve seen of it so far has looked excellent. From its expanded single player offerings to its mechanical tweaks and improvements to its suite of multiplayer content, Street Fighter 6 is shaping up to be one of the biggest games of the year.

The video features executive producer Tom Cannon and game director Shauna Rivera, who talk about the various aspects of the game’s tag mechanics. Project L will be a 2v2 fighting game, in the vein of Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid.

The game will allow players to call their second character for an assist move, to tag to the second player entirely, and to provide a defensive support move.

The video also shows off a fair bit of gameplay involving the characters Darius, Ahri, Jinx, and Ekko. The video also gives us an update on a new character coming to Project L—Illaoi—who is still being actively developed. Illaoi was originally unveiled earlier this year.

Project L doesn’t yet have a release date, but the game will likely come to PC, considering Riot Games’ history. It will also be a free-to-play game.

“Last time I shared that we’ve honed in on our gameplay as an assist-based fighter with two champs per team. We’re finishing up our work on core mechanics now, and a lot of the team has moved on to building champions or building around game features like competitive play and our social systems.

“One of our goals is to remove as many barriers as possible from you enjoying Project L. We want you to be able to play no matter where you live, what your skill level is, or how much money you have to spend on a game. To that, I’m happy to confirm that Project L will be free-to-play. If you’ve played a Riot game before, this probably won’t come as a surprise.

“Our team is made up of fighting game veterans and folks who are passionate about serving the fighting game community. And we operate with one approach; if we wouldn’t like it, we won’t do it. When it comes to monetization, we promise to be respectful of both your time and your wallet,” said Cannon.

Riot also confirmed a new playable character – Kraken Priestess Illaoi, a powerhouse who fights with the deity Nagakabouros. Her style is focused on heavy semi-short hits and heavy long hits while also staggering opponents with tentacle hits. Though the tentacles are controlled via a totem, Illaoi can’t relentlessly spam them.

As such, she’s not a zoner but a fighter who excels at generating openings, then jumping and laying on the hurt. For more details on Illaoi and her design, check out the blog post here.

Project L still doesn’t have a release date but it’s in “active development.” More updates on Illaoi, like her animation and visual effects to audio, will be revealed later. An update on the overall development is also slated to arrive before the year is out so stay tuned.

Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition

Street Fighter 5 is in the best possible place now following the Champion Edition’s launch on PS4 and PC. And that’s keeping in mind the latest network patch and communication surrounding it. Still, content-wise, it has almost every piece of additional content released thus far – a roster of 40 characters, over 200 costumes, 34 stages, and so on. Gameplay-wise, Gil and Seth are incredibly fun to play while offering some great depth. The netcode still isn’t the greatest but it’s also improved from launch (depending on who you ask, of course).