SNK's long-running fighting franchise is set to make its return, amid anticipation from its fans. Since debuting in 1994 with its initial game, The King of Fighters '94, this will be the franchise's 24th entry, including, but not limited to, spin-offs and side projects such as 2018's SNK Heroines. In an extended trailer, producer Yasuyuki Oda and creative director Eisuke Ogura spoke about the potential direction KOF XV intends to go:

"We intend of keeping the franchises' staple of being fast-paced while also adding elements to make it more exciting", Ogura spoke. "We're able to things now for both sounds and visuals that were impossible back when developing XIV, so we're taking our time to make sure each element is refined."

The producers intend to have more details next week, along with a follow-up trailer. There is also a special animated promotional short that's in the works produced by anime directing veteran Masami Obari. If anyone is a long time fan of the Fatal Fury series, Masami Obari was producer and director of the 90's Fatal Fury OAV (original animation video) and the theatrical release Fatal Fury The Motion Picture, which was released in Japan in 1994.

As Sony fitted a great deal of funding towards its development, King Of Fighters XIV was a PlayStation 4 console exclusive. The game was praised for its gameplay, but the unpolished 3D character models were widely criticized. SNK, lacking the proper finances and resources to utilize Unreal Engine 4, opted to use a built-from-the-ground engine to run the software. Using Unreal for 2019's Samurai Shodown, SNK appears to have learned how best to accommodate its features and adapt the vision for King Of Fighters accordingly.

King Of Fighters XV is expected to be released in 2021. An official date is not yet given, as optimization and further tuning continues to partake, nor details about which platforms it will be available for. More information will be available in the weeks to come. 

The other announcement included details about Samurai Shodown's Season 3 DLC characters. Cham Cham (Tam Tam's little sister) and guest character from the Neo Geo fighting game The Last Blade, Hibiki Takane are available mid-March 2021, with two more characters to be revealed. Samurai Shodown is currently available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One & Series X|S, Stadia, and Windows.