Evo 2016: SNK King of Fighters XIV Panel

he second day of our Evo weekend continues at lunchtime as we sit down and find out about the history and the future of The King of Fighters and the rebuilding of it's developer SNK. As a big Neo Geo fan, I personally was very excited to meet and hear from the visionaries of some of the best fighting games including Fatal Fury, Samurai Showdown and The King of Fighters, which got it's start in 1994. The versions that would follow, including KoF 98 and 2001 being to many fans as the strongest entries in the series. Now the upcoming King of Fighters XIV will go back to the roots that made it a mainstay in the fighting game genre.

The first point of conversation, and a hot topic from since the game was announced was it's transition to 3D graphics. The developer claims that with 50 characters, all with expressions and visuals it would only be made possible with 3D. The panel was proud to announce that 32 classic characters will be in the new title, and 19 new characters will make their debut in the series. A 3v3 Battle System returns to the game, leading up to 19,600 combinations of teammates for players to experiment with. The developer states that a push for e-sports in the future will lead their development and content for the game.

After the Orochi and Nests saga, a new chapter in KoF emerges. Several years pass since the last tournament and after the Ash saga. The team at SNK state that the game's story will be something people will not expect, and that the new game should be seen as not just a relaunch for the series, but a relaunch for the SNK brand. The team from Playstation who were in attendance at the panel were also proud to showcase the Burn to Fight Premium Edition with steel book case, artbook from Udon, three disc soundtrack and a collectors box. Only available to North America customers, this version is great for new fighters in the series as well as the collectors and fans of SNK.

Full redesign of the mechanics to simplify for a larger audience will be a part of the new title, as well as a new rush feature that allows players to perform combos by repeatedly hitting the same button.

Climax cancel is a new mechanic that is introduced to the combo system that will allow players to strike super special moves up to three times leading to ultimate sequential combos and devastating damage. Game modes will include Story, Versus, Mission, Tutorial, Training, Online and Gallery. The developer also makes several mentions to the fact that there will be fifty characters playable and a story mode at launch, to possible rub it in the faces of another fighting game franchise. 

In regards to the often criticized online play, the team has taken criticism from the last netcode to establish a debug build to deal with online issues. Party Battle mode will allow three players on a team at the same time online. The game will offer lobbies to communicate or spectate, and the title will utilize the Sony network and live features for replay content, making it's exclusive run on Playstation 4 an ideal choice for the developer.

In the last moments of the panel, the developers were happy to announce that Garou: Mark of the Wolves will be coming to PS4 as a re-released title, in part to celebrate the Fatal Fury 25th Anniversary. Fans can vote and utilize polls coming soon on Twitter to determine fan demand for what titles should come out on the Playstation system, comments can be address to @giocarsi on Twitter. Lastly the panel announced that The King of Fighters XIV has gone gold, and will be released on August 23. A demo will be made available to download on Tuesday with seven characters playable. A special edition KoF stick from Hori will be available overseas, and hopefully the team will be able to attempt to bring it stateside as well.

We are very excited for this title's release, from the information at the panel and the playable build we experienced on the show floor it seems like SNK is poised to make a great return which is awesome news for all the fans of SNK and it's library of games.