King of Fighters XV: First gameplay, 6 characters revealed

SNK Corporation formally unveiled The King of Fighters XV by debuting the gameplay and displaying six characters. The game will be released later this year. The announcement was initially postponed on Wednesday and suffered a brief delay. The characters shown in a new trailer (below) include K ‘, Kyo Kusanagi, Leona, Benimaru, Shun’ei and Mai Shiranui. Not many details are added, but we can take a good look at the visual style of the game, which seems to be a little more stylized than KOF 14.Following the reveal trailer, KOF XV Creative Director Eisuke Ogura and Producer Yasuyuki Oda revealed a little more about what the game will look like when it launches in 2021.

“We are focusing on keeping the series moving at a fast pace, while adding elements to make it more exciting,” notes Ogura. The developers are currently “improving the features and optimizing the game”, but plan to launch in 2021. Another trailer for The King of Fighters XV will arrive next week to complement the revelation.

King of Fighters XV – 6 screenshots

Today’s trailer also included news about King of Fighters 14 Ultimate Edition – now digitally available – a new release for King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match on PS4, and then revealed Cham Cham and Hibiki Tanake from The Last Blade 2 as DLC characters for the Samurai Shodown season 3 Pass. Samurai Shodown will also receive a relaunch of the game in March.

KOF XV was announced during EVO 2019, and we had our first glimpse of the game in December 2020, which revealed that in addition to the characters mentioned above, Benimaru would be playable. It is still unclear on which platforms the game will be available.

Here is our review of King of Fighters 14, which debuted in 2016. We scored 8, noting its “outdated graphics and questionable network code”.

Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

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