Project L has finally got an official name—2XKO—as Riot Games moves to a more open line of communication around the game’s development. Unfortunately, the new name is being nearly critically panned by the fighting game community (FGC) as it makes its first marks in the scene.
2XKO, which the dev team today said is pronounced exactly as it is spelled for everyone asking, fits the Riot fighter’s focus on two-on-two combat quite well. That does not mean the wider FGC isn’t going to dunk on a name that sounds like a fledgling crypto project and is actually a biological structural basis—whatever that means.
Most of the complaints simply note that Project L feels like a more complete name that plays into the FGC. Others added that they feel like this was a missed opportunity to really nail an epic title. Some of the more popular suggestions, other than just keeping the placeholder, include Lethal Tempo (which plays into a League of Legends phrase that seems to work perfectly) or long-handing the name to Double Knockout.
Other alternate pronunciations, like just 2KO or Taco, have been gaining traction among those players who just want something else to call the Riot game if the 2XKO name is really sticking around and they end up playing it regularly.
Despite all of these complaints, there are plenty of onlookers who are fine with or even like the 2XKO moniker. The game’s executive producer Tom Cannon is among them, with the FGC veteran stating that not liking the name of a project at first is something he is used to: “Naming is hard. I actually didn’t really dig the names of past projects at first (Evo, Radiant, Rising Thunder), but they grew on me over time. The team worked really hard to land on #2XKO, and I loved it right away! Glad so many of you do too,” Cannon told unconvinced fans.
This is also a community that frequently plays games like Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes, Guilty Gear Xrd: REV 2, and shorthand every other long title already, which shows that, if the game is good, the name will work.
Either way, it is unlikely Riot will backtrack on this rather controversial decision considering 2XKO is currently set to release at some point in 2025 and various playtests are already lined up to be held throughout the year leading up to more announcements.
