SNK is on a roll. The veteran video game developer had many announcements at Evolution Championship Series 2023, including fresh information on Najd (a King of Fighters XV DLC character), its rollback netcode plans for KOF XIII and Samurai Shodown, and a teaser trailer for the highly anticipated Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves.
I spoke with Yasuyuki Oda (general manager), Kaito Soranaka (lead game designer), Tetsuro Araragi (CEO's office), and Joshua Weatherford (game designer and translator) about the company's future and, of course, City of the Wolves. The responses are translated from Japanese to English, and lightly edited for clarity.
PCMag: How do you go about picking which characters enter the base roster vs DLC?
SNK: There's obviously a lot that we take into account on that front. We do think about fan favorites and the different requests, especially for the DLC. For Najd, there were many requests for her to come back. She was a popular character. However, there are a lot of fans of legacy characters, as well. We want to make sure to pick characters that the newer fans will know, too. So this is one reason that she was picked.
I imagine Du Long falls into that category, too.
Yes.
There's been news that SNK wants to expand into some non-fighting games. Would the company consider resurrecting sports games like Baseball Stars?
Yeah, we're obviously thinking a lot about that recently, and I have many plans internally for bringing back different, old IPs. I can't say anything in particular.
The one older IP that everyone's talking about is Fatal Fury, especially after the release of the City of the Wolves teaser. Where does the game fall in the Fatal Fury timeline? Is it like a direct continuation of where Garou ended? Is it years later?
We're not going to say anything particular about the story, but we put a little fan service hint in the teaser. When you think of the Fatal Fury series, there are a lot of spin-off titles. There are six titles in the past that were kind of canon story titles, so this is going to be the seventh release. So there are actually seven claw marks in the logo. If you look closely, that's a little hint. That's all we can say.
I was struck by the new art style, because it looked as though it was influenced by comic books. Was that the intent?
It's definitely an American comic style. That's the approach that we're taking. So that's intentional. I [Oda] actually brought that up for KOF XV as an idea, because I'm a big Marvel fan, especially for old comics. It was mostly a decision by the art supervisor. It was one of the things that he came up with to use with the shaders and such.
Does City of the Wolves have a release window that you speak upon?
We can't say the actual release date, but we will be doing a lot more promotion, starting next year. We're planning live events with playable sessions. So definitely just keep looking for future news.
What was the inspiration for bringing Fatal Fury back, considering the many brands within the SNK catalog?
When we were making the Neo Geo, the Fatal Fury series was one of the releases that pushed the hardware forward and helped sell a lot of units. It was one of the more successful series. So it's a very iconic IP for SNK, and the story hasn't been concluded. So we want to make sure that there's a finale, basically.
Speaking of conclusions, I watched the King of Fighters XV Finals and wondered if you were surprised at how players use certain characters.
We're pretty far along in the life of the game, and we've done a lot of balancing on our side. So there aren't many big surprises. It's really small details. For example, the new character, Isla. She was used by a couple of the players of the top six, but in different positions. So, it's a good sign that even a top-tier character isn't just set into one [team] spot. And we saw the same thing with B. Jenet. People are also getting a better handle on the Shatter Strike system, which is the counter. We saw it used a lot more effectively in this tournament than in previous tournaments.
Did you make tweaks to Shatter Strike, or are players simply using it in creative ways
There was a little bit of a balance change to Shatter Strike, depending on a character's height. So that probably helped a lot of them to use it more effectively across the entire roster. Some characters were too short to use it to connect certain combos.
There's an industry shift to more, simplified control schemes. Do you see that as a potential option for KOF XV, City of the Wolves, or any other upcoming SNK fighting game?
We do have plans for doing that kind of system in our future games. And we've had our own Rush combo system in KOF XV, as well. It allows a certain bit of simplified controls for users. So that's one thing that we're definitely always trying to improve.
For more, check out The Best PC Fighting Games and The 7 Best Super Smash Bros. Alternatives.