What was supposed to be a temporary Lab has been announced as a full-time game mode going forward for Teamfight Tactics.

According to a post by the TFT development team on Monday morning, Double Up, the dynamic co-op game mode where four teams of two battle it out until only one duo remains, will not be removed from the client for maintenance and will instead stick around long term.

When the game mode first launched back on November 17, 2021, the development team thought it was just a way to add a social element to the game but they didn't expect it to become so popular.

According to the post:

"When we first released Double Up, we knew we were releasing a game mode that was not complete. We also knew players really, really, really, wanted a way to play with their friends, so we ended up releasing Double Up in Beta. The Lab was 90 percent of the way to Double Up’s final, non-Beta form, but we needed players to give us that final 10 percent—that crucial feedback that could help Double Up become not only the premiere social mode in the autobattler genre, but also a premiere game mode for Teamfight Tactics. So, we released Double Up in beta, knowing that we would eventually be taking it off live servers for improvements around patch 12.2."

Now calling it a "disservice" to pull the game mode while they worked on improving it, the dev team has instead opted to patch Double Up over time to help it reach its' full potential in their eyes.

A couple of ideas they've been working on and hope to implement in the near future for the game mode are:

- Double Up lobbies with more than two players.
- A ranked system tailor-made for Double Up.
- Communications for randomly paired players.
- Enhanced Double Up clarity
- Clearer rules for reinforcements
- Double Up balancing and healthy metas

The game's development team aims to have the above implemented by the time Set 7 hits at the end of spring or the start of summer.