It seemed almost inevitable once Terry and Mai were confirmed for Street Fighter 6, and now we know a couple of Capcom’s fighting game icons are heading to SNK’s block party too.
The companies previously announced that Ken Masters and Chun-Li are coming to Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves after the game launches next year, but why those two fighters in particular?
Well, we recently covered what SNK had to say about Ken’s inclusion along with his ties to Terry though they also had a bit to say about the strongest woman in the world too.
In the same interview with Famitsu that we translated, Fatal Fury Producer Yasuyuki Oda spoke a bit about the guest characters.
“When you think of Street Fighter, you think of Ryu and Ken, but they have a lot of similar moves so players would probably think ‘I’d like a bit more variation here,'” said Oda as translated by our own Nick “MajinTenshinhan” Taylor. “So then from that, the next step is to decide between Ryu and Ken and actually, Ken and Terry had a lot of interactions back in Capcom vs. SNK.
“Also, if you’re going to add someone like Ryu, from SNK I think that it’d make more sense to pair him with Ryo Sakazaki or Kyo Kusanagi, for Fatal Fury it’s Ken. Then for the second one, we thought that it’d be best to add Chun-Li who’s basically one of the icons of women in gaming.”
He also continued on a bit farther about Chun specifically.
“I don’t feel like Chun-Li has had as many changes as Ken has, but since Fatal Fury is a very high-mobility game we want to make sure she adapts well to that without feeling off from the character,” said Oda.
Those changes mentioned seem to be in reference to how the world warriors have evolved over time and now necessarily how they’ve been adapted to Fatal Fury though it sounds like the developers want to capture the “images” of Chun and Ken that players have in their minds
The way they’re talking, however, does indicate that Chun in particular may require some extra adjustments and tuning like if SNK gives her a run instead of a typical dash.
How she interacts with the REV system in City of the Wolves will also be interesting to see in how it’ll interact with her charge moves canceling into each other since we haven’t really seen much out of that type of input for the new Fatal Fury so far.
Plus, they’ll also have the ability to put brakes on specials like Lightning Legs or Tensho Kicks to give her combo routes that wouldn’t be possible in Street Fighter.
It is curious, though, that they don’t bring up the rivalry between Chun-Li and Mai too as basically the earliest two female fighting game icons.
They may not have quite the same “relationship” as Ken and Terry, but the ladies have been depicted on opposing sides in past crossovers — and we’ll potentially get to see them interact more when Mai comes to SF6 early next year before Fatal Fury releases.
Unfortunately, we probably won’t be seeing what Ken and Chun actually look like in action in the hands of SNK considering Mr. Masters is slated as the second DLC character for the game in Summer 2025 while Chun-Li won’t be coming until next Winter.
From the teaser and promotional image used so far, they may be sporting their Street Fighter 6 designs over their classic costumes.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is slated to launch on April 24, 2025 on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and PC while those who pre-order the game will also receive that Season Pass 1 as well as Terry’s nostalgia outfit and 3 days early access for no additional charge.