The floodgates are finally starting to open for information surrounding Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, but it probably be best to hear more about it from those actively working to make this sequel a reality after 25 years.
I was one of the lucky few to have an opportunity to interview both Fatal Fury Director Hayato Konya and longtime Producer Yasuyuki Oda at the SNK World Championship 2023 Grand Final on a myriad of topics for the game and SNK.
It sounds as though they felt the development team really wanted to go back and finish the story that was set up in Garou: Mark of the Wolves all of the way back in 1999 while noting Fatal Fury was still something they continued to get asked about all of the time.
Like The King of Fighters 15 and Samurai Shodown, City of the Wolves may not have something exactly like a cinematic Story Mode like you’d find in Mortal Kombat, but there’s apparently going to be more to it than usual to help conclude these story lines that have built up over three decades.
I was also able to ask them directly about some of the challenges of developing a fighting game in the modern environment compared to the arcade days since Oda was originally at SNK from 1993 through 200 and designed Garou.
It’s not included in the main interview here, but I of course had to ask if rollback netcode and crossplay were going to be included in Fatal Fury out the gate and got a quick yes from the team.
If you want to know more of what it was like to actually play City of the Wolves, check out my in-depth preview and impressions here.
And of course read up on my interview with Konya and Oda below.
DarkHorse: What was the decision process to bring back Fatal Fury after all this time?
Konya: So after a lot of the veterans came back to SNK in recent years and started working on King of Fighters 14, Samurai Shodown and then make the next KOF, we kinda thought about overall what do we want to do next as far as IP. Fatal Fury was the obvious choice because it was such an iconic Neo Geo series back in the day.
DarkHorse: Why was now the right time for Fatal Fury?
Konya: I think it’s just a coincidence, but there’s obviously a lot of fans out there who want to know what happened after Garou with the unconcluded stories and everything. We were always being asked about it and wanted to make sure to give the fans something they want.
DarkHorse: What does it mean to you and the team to return to the series?
Oda: It’s a new generation. It’s new hardware and everything, so we’re trying to take a new angle on the series and make it fresh with the same IP is the feeling we’ve been working towards.
DarkHorse: Was there any thought to bring back the multiple lane systems from the early Fatal Fury games?
Oda: Yes, we obviously thought about it pretty early in development for the project, but it’s very hard to fake that sort of depth in 3D compared to a 2D game. So there’s quite a few difficulties on that. This time the main concept for battle is a normal one line traditional fighting game.
DarkHorse: What do you guys think is the coolest part of the new game?
Konya: The REV System with the upgraded overall mechanics is the most interesting one, especially the REV Accel whenever you start connecting all of the moves together. It’s a very aggressive play style that we were aiming for, and I think we pulled it off quite well.
DarkHorse: How have standards in creating new fighting games changed in recent years and what’s that like from a developer point of view?
Oda: Probably the biggest difference is having the expectation to create a much higher volume of single player experiences, especially compared to the old days when we could focus on just 1v1 arcade fighting.
This is also the first time the series has ever had a full English voice over, so that was a challenge. At first, it was a little weird to hear Terry talk in actual English like that, but we think we’ve done a good job with it in the end.
DarkHorse: Is there going to be a more fleshed out story mode compared to KOF15 and Samurai Shodown?
Konya: The goal for this time because there’s been a lot of character stories throughout the series over the years is to focus on those and give them a nice conclusion a lot of the time. There is quite a bit more text compared to the previous game.
