During the EVO 2022 festivities over the weekend, publisher SNK released a short video announcing an all-new Fatal Fury game. Given the amount of time since the last one, it felt both like a huge surprise but also something of an inevitability.
Here’s the clip, which over 30 seconds manages to show...a single piece of art:
Here’s a bigger, less animated version of the piece:
So, a new Fatal Fury/Garou game, which means this is either a successor or direct sequel (it’s hard to tell from a single piece of art!) to 1999's Garou: Mark of the Wolves. That itself was a big departure for the series at the time, since it introduced a whole range of new characters and redesigned Terry Bogard, the only previously existing one to return.
Unbelievably, Garou: Mark of the Wolves was the last main Fatal Fury game released, which means it has been over 20 years since we last saw Terry and company in the limelight in their own series. (Fatal Fury characters have, of course, been appearing in countless other games, from Super Smash Bros. to the dating game King of Fighters for Girls.)
What this game might look like is anyone’s guess, since this announcement—based around a single image, and without any other accompanying information—is about as brief as you’re every going to get from a major publisher, and suggests this game is years away from release.
One piece of news found on the image itself, though, and helpfully zoomed in on during the trailer, was the signature of Aki Senno, aka Tonko, who has worked on-and-off with SNK for 25 years years, having been an artist on the Last Blade, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown and Metal Slug series.
She’s perhaps best known, though, for her work on the original Garou—released in 1999 in arcades but again in 2000 on Neo Geo and 2001 on the Dreamcast—so getting her back onboard for this game is a nice treat for long-time SNK fighting game fans.
