A new developer chat on the official 2XKO Twitter account revealed some interesting information about the game’s development. Revealed this time is the development order of the first four heroes – Ekko, Ahri, Darius and Yasuo. Is it just a trivial matter? Or was this an interesting peak in the design process? Let’s dig deeper and find out.
The developer behind these interesting additions is none other than Maxine Virtue, 2XKO Core Game Initiative Producer and a new member of the team that we have not seen in official communications so far. First, she detailed what happens when the team begins designing a new hero.
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“Every time we start a new champion, our designers refer to League of Legends. We understand the lore, what moves they have […] We tried to design a kit that could be translated into a fighting game. “When we interviewed Alex Jaffe at Evo 2023, we learned a bit about this process with Yasuo, but this is the first time a clear and universal process has been spelled out for the public.
Virtue then gives us a juicy character development sequence, and the first choice may surprise you! “Why we chose Darius as the first real character in 2XKO is because his attacks aren’t too fast or too slow. So he’s basically a really good character that sets the stage for the game.”
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Then there’s Ahri, which, according to Virtue, is because the character has “ultra-high mobility and simple projectiles,” allowing the team to flesh out the 2XKO projectile system. With these two characters identified as “prototype roles,” the team appears to have shifted the design process toward expanding the roster to various prototypes.
Then there’s Ekko, an all-around player with fast normals who can get into brawls regardless of range, and Yasuo, whom Virtue calls “the character we want.” [to be] “Relatively easy for beginners to get started”, but the suite gets more and more complex as you delve deeper into it.
Some of you may remember early videos capturing champions like Jinx and Katarina, back when the game was still called Project L. Well, it’s safe to say that these are archetypal characters from when the game wasn’t yet locked as 2v2 fighters. Once the team knew what kind of fighting game they were making, they could build complete prototype characters (Darius and Ahri) to get an idea of how the game would play. From there, with the tempo and core mechanics established, the team can start looking at a broader roster.
This is the first 2XKO developer chat since 2XKO’s name was revealed and further updates were promised. It looks like smaller, informal insights into the game will hopefully fill in the gaps between major reveals, much like many are expecting from Evo Japan in April.
We’ve embedded the developer chat above. Give it a watch and let us know what you think!