KING OF FIGHTERS XIV
Developer/publisher SNK Format Arcade, PC, PS4 Release 2016
Developer/publisher SNK Format Arcade, PC, PS4 Release 2016
“MAKING GAMES FOR YEARS, I’M USED TO RELEASING ONE AND HAVING IT GET BASHED”
While I was working on Street Fighter IV, most of the SNK staff were thrown to the four corners of the Japanese videogame industry. Still, twice a year we would all meet up for drinks. During that entire time, one staff member had stayed with SNK. Whenever we got together he would speak to each of us privately, trying to convince us to come back. He’d talk about how the environment was extremely positive, and the development team had the freedom to make the kinds of games they wanted to make. In early 2014 he managed to convince me, so I left Dimps and, in February that year, re-joined SNK.
With King Of Fighters XIV I was actually doing a similar thing to that which I had done at Dimps: taking a well-loved series and moving it into 3D. We didn’t take the 2D animations and 3D-ify them. We referenced them, of course, but the entire game and animation system was built from the ground up. The 3D animator who did this work had also worked on Fatal Fury before moving to Dimps to work on Street
Fighter IV. SNK managed to poach him back as well.
Street Fighter IV revitalised interest in fighting games. A lot of that success was down to the marketing team at Capcom as much as the development team at Dimps. They did an excellent job, not only of promoting the game and producing this groundswell of interest and excitement, but also in checking the market, and predicting that the time was ripe for a revival. And it’s true. The idea for making King Of Fighters XIV came from Street Fighter IV’s success. I wanted to create a game that truly lived up to the expectations that had been set in the market. I wanted there to be a large roster of characters. The animators wanted to kill me. It was gruelling work to get everything ready in time for the game’s launch, but we managed it. The King Of Fighters community has a reputation for being, shall we say, opinionated. But I wasn’t too nervous at launch. You know, making games for all these years, I’m used to releasing a game and having it get bashed. I expected some people to like the game and others to be less enamoured. I was ready for whatever came our way.