Fighting Games Friday: The King of Fighters We Deserve

SNK has been slowly but steadily revealing the roster choices for The King of Fighters XV since revealing the game at the beginning of the year. They, in this process, established two noticeable trends. Nearly every team has been shuffled from The King of Fighters XIV, with only two, The Fatal Fury team (with Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, and Joe Higashi) and the Ikari Warriors Team (with Leona Heidern, Ralf Jones, and Clark Still), remaining intact. The second was the lack of new characters, with returning characters from pre-KOFXIV installments like Chizuru Kagura and the Orochi Team being the big surprises thus far. It was easy to start thinking this game wouldn’t have any.

It will, though. SNK was bound to, well, shatter expectations and break from the established trend of revealing one returning character on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to show the other content and clarify everything owners who pick up the game will get at launch. KOFXV will include modes every new fighting game that isn’t from a small or indie team should have, including an online training mode and a mode to practice moves for every character. Also included will be a DJ Station featuring over 300 tracks from this title and prior KOF games, and the option to change the background music in stages. Cool stuff.

But not all the details are great. The game will launch with 39 characters. The roster count is solid for a team-based fighter with primarily 3-on-3 battles, and higher than several previous non-Dream Match KOF games. But it’s lower than the 50 KOFXIV included at launch. It was easy to think the base character count would at least be on par its predecessor thanks to the sheer number of returning characters reusing the same animations, but that’s clearly not happening.

Don’t mistake this as hard criticism for SNK’s decision. It’s possible the graphics enhancements compared to the bland-looking previous game have taken more resources than suspected, and 39 characters is nothing to sneeze at. I just hope this isn’t a cynical excuse to save more of them for downloadable content, of which they’ve already confirmed six as part of the first Season Pass.

SNK showed more new and returning characters as part of this special promotion. A big returning one is Ash Crimson, subsequently fully revealed as part of the character spotlight series. Ash appeared to have died at the end of The King of Fighters XIII, but it couldn’t be clearer by now that few characters really die in fighting games. Mature and Vice were previously proof of this in the KOF franchise, so Ash’s return was only a matter of time. Maybe he’ll bring back former teammates and rivals with him, like Elizabeth, Shen Woo, or Duo-Lon.

The trailer shows other new characters who’ve yet to be identified, one of which happens to be a black woman. She’ll be a great addition to a franchise that hasn’t included enough of them over the years, since they apparently plan on leaving the legendary American Sports Team on the bus they’ve been in for years. A number of recent fighting games have been good with adding more black characters, including Tekken and Guilty Gear, and it’s very good that KOF has become part of that trend. That shouldn’t stop here.

SNK director and producer Yasuyuki Oda previously confirmed that KOFXV will have rollback netplay, the modern solution to any online fighting game woes — especially one for a company that’s relied on some of the worst delay-based netplay around for over a decade. If that wasn’t convincing enough, it was again confirmed in the newest trailer. SNK finally heard the cries of fans after games like KOFXIV and Samurai Shodown included online play that made for borderline unplayable experiences, even with players being within a close distance.

Their plans are great, but I’m still a little concerned about how good the implementation will be. Street Fighter V previously showed that simply adding rollback to a game won’t do much good if the code implementation is pitiful. This is why beta test sessions need to be held, as other fighting game developers have done. This game will release in a little over five months, so the time to start holding these sessions is, well, right now. They should at least be planning them.

It will take time to iron out any issues that could arise. Arc System Works held the first beta test for Guilty Gear Strive with rollback netplay in mid-February, which handled well online when it wasn’t suffering from server connection issues. Fortunately, four months was enough to iron out any issues, which ensured that the final beta test ran smoothly. Just as Strive was the first opportunity for Arc to implement rollback netplay, KOFXV will be SNK’s first time utilizing it. Several tests will be required to ensure it’s ready when the full game launches.

On that note: The King of Fighters XV will launch on February 17th for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and the Microsoft Store. Notably, there’s no Xbox One version, but there aren’t many complaints about it. Nor will the game be excusive to any PC stores at launch like Samurai Shodown. In another sign of a modern fighting game, launch physical copies will include Terry’s Garou: Mark of the Wolves outfit, while digital launch copies will include Leona’s old outfit. They can’t just give them to you anymore, you know.

There are eleven characters left to be revealed for the base roster, which we’ll see in character spotlights in the coming weeks. Not everyone’s favorites will be included, that’s what DLC is for. Your wallet may not like this.