Seems for now it’s just tied to part of her gameplay though maybe that’ll change before release
SNK has been kicking it into high gear lately with Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves on the horizon and new Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown titles entering production, which is cool to see after all this time.
Mai Shiranui was the most recent character revealed for the upcoming Garou sequel, but it seems that part of her trailer wasn’t quite what it appeared to be for many fans.
NeoGeoNow previously held a really good interview with SNK’s Yasuyuki Oda, Josh Weatherford, and Jonathan Campana where they talked a lot about City of the Wolves and the future of the development studio.
While Mai is receiving the most drastic redesign she’s ever seen in the new Fatal Fury with her new biker-like outfit, her original red dress did appear in the trailer too.
This led many, us included, to believe that her classic attire would be an alternate costume similar to Terry’s pre-order bonus outfit, but that’s apparently not the case.
NeoGeoNow asks specifically about its inclusion being a selectable costume or just part of her gameplay, and Oda confirms that right now, Mai’s dress is only the latter.
That likely means the kunoichi will simply transform back into her iconic gear for one or more of her Super moves like her Hidden Gear before quickly changing back to the jacket and pants.
We previously reported that Oda stated they’ll “try their best” to do more alternate outfits besides Terry though Weatherford noted those take a lot more time and resources than most fans probably realize while acknowledging they understand the requests.
It does seem a bit odd that they would model Mai’s original outfit and not make it fully selectable, but that can always change before release — and if not, it’s probably something modders can quickly change too.
Beyond their current titles, SNK confirmed brand new Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown games are entering production with the latter planned to be an action RPG instead of a fighting game.
When asked about them, Weatherford describes the new Samurai Shodown action RPG as still very far out, but hints that they’re “always making cool stuff and have a couple little secrets in the works.”
He goes on to say that both the RPG and new Art of Fighting games are still only in their early prototyping phases with other projects that are farther along that will presumably come after Fatal Fury before those two.
“There’s going to be a lot of interesting stuff with those games especially, and right now, it’s mostly just about building the team and taking our time on those two projects because they’re very important to us and making sure they come out perfect,” said Weatherford.
Terry Bogard just launched in Street Fighter 6 with Mai coming on the horizon, so of course there’s questions about whether Fatal Fury will do the same with Capcom guests though obviously Oda and the crew are continuing to play coy on that subject.
Soccer icon Cristiano Ronaldo just recently teased some sort of involvement with Fatal Fury too, which we’re still waiting to learn more of the details on exactly what that’s going to be.
Tokyo Game Show 2024 is just hours away from kicking off where SNK has pretty much confirmed new Fatal Fury information as well as updates on Vice and Mature in The King of Fighters 15, so we’ll likely be learning quite a bit more very soon.
Mai will also be playable for the first time in the new Fatal Fury demo, so we should get to see her more in action too and get a look at what’s going on with her costume situation.
And whatever else may come out of TGS week.
You can check out the full interview between NeoGeoNow and SNK below where they delve into a wide variety of other interesting topics too.