2XKO Early Access.
Working with Riot's internal creatives and multiple external vendors, I led the development of the story, art style and music structure of the Early Access cinematic for 2XKO, a tag-team fighting game in the world of League of Legends. All works displayed © Riot Games 2025.
Role
Product
Duration
Year
Fighting for Eyeballs
We began developing the trailer in a red ocean market with established giants and new tag-fighters arriving on the scene. To get this highly competitive community to notice us, we had to enshrine what makes 2XKO unique.
In contrast to other fighters, 2XKO made it easy to play with a human teammate. This was the heart of the game, and the extension of our mission to champion the fighting game community. Instead of an opponent, another human could become your co-pilot, your mentor or simply a friend.
High-Stakes Partnership
Rather than focusing on the broad launch roster, we chose to dive deep into the forming of a synergistic bond between dual protagonists — Ekko and Ahri — in the middle of a high-stakes 2v2 team fight. The hardest part of the fight required them both to face each others' demons. Like any human relationship, it required their trust.
We paced the action to fit songform. During the verses and the bridge, our fighters' bond would evolve in the world of their memories. And with each chorus, the battle would get harder, culminating in an epic comeback at the bridge.
"Revisiting" the wheel
We reduced overhead and leaned into the strengths of our partners by giving pre-production and main production stages to two different studios.
With their knowledge of League characters, Arcane story and music videos, Ninoc Studio was the perfect partner to handle visdev and storyboards. We guided them to produce a nearly frame-perfect 2D animatic to the instrumental developed by our internal composers. The heart-rending visuals and fight choreography came from them. Bravo.
In hand with a 68-page style guide breaking down characters, environments and VFX, we briefed Squeeze Animation Studios, who would spearhead main production with maximum budget efficiency. Existing environments from the game and Arcane animated series were used to this end. Final champion models were also based on in-game assets.
The collaboration with Squeeze was extensive, involving layout / animation edits, paintovers on expressions, poses and lighting, reference gifs, written notes and in-person briefings. It was truly a labour of love.
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