Evo 2024 was a huge weekend for fighting game fans enjoying the current state of the scene, but also a look ahead at what’s coming in the future.
SNK had probably the most to reveal out of everyone at the event, and that included discussions about Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown getting new games too.
There was of course one of (if not the) biggest surprise of the show being the rerelease of SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos as well as Kevin Rian joining the cast of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves.
Before all of that, however, SNK held their developer panel that Friday night, July 19, where they revealed Vice and Mature as the special DLC characters for The King of Fighters 15 and teased what’s coming further down the pipeline.
“There’s a lot of stuff in the works,” saidS NK Producer Joshua Weatherford on the stage. “There’s a lot of stuff I can’t talk about. But we’ve got a few projects that are very far out. We want to get more and more staff, because we need more people to make these crazy awesome games.
One that got a lot of press over here is that we have announced that we’re making a new Art of Fighting actually. So you’re going to see South Town in its full ’70s glory brawling again.”
We actually first heard about a new Art of Fighting at the end of 2023 in a New Year’s message from senior SNK Producer Yasuyuki Oda as a quick little mention, but now we have further confirmation that the project is indeed moving forward.
It does sound as though Art of Fighting will likely be a more traditional fighting game like in the past, but the brand new Samurai Shodown title they also teased at Evo is heading in a different direction this time.
“Also, one of the projects I’m in charge of, that we also mentioned at the same time, is a Samurai Shodown action RPG,” continued Weatherford. “Look forward to that one, we have a lot surprises in store for that one.
This is pretty big news for fans of both franchises because while SamSho did receive a new entry / reboot in 2019, Art of Fighting hasn’t seen a brand new title since 1996.
Taking the world / setting of Samurai Shodown and opening it up to explore and do more sounds pretty interesting, and it’s something SNK hasn’t really attempted since coming back in its current company iteration.
With Fatal Fury not set to release until early 2025, the soonest we could probably expect to see a first glimpse at either of these new games would be in 2026 or maybe even 2027.
These projects don’t seem very far along at all, especially considering SNK is still hiring for them.
As stated on the recruitment page, both projects are currently under development and are currently recruiting large numbers of people. If you are interested, please apply. https://t.co/YmIgdBmVA9
— 下田 祐（YU SHIMODA） (@Yu_Shimoda) July 20, 2024
“And if you’re a fan of these franchises and you’re looking for an in-development job, send in your applications, we need more people to help us make these awesome games. I need more people on that team for sure,” said Weatherford.
On the website for SNK and the new Samurai Shodown project, they show job openings for multiple artists, planners, sound directors and programmers, so if that sounds right up your alley and are open to moving to Osaka, it’d probably be a good idea to try applying.
What ultimately comes of these projects remains to be seen, but it’s a good sign that in a year that’s seen thousands of video game industry lay offs, SNK is looking to expand and do more.
If you think you missed any of the other big announcements from Evo weekend, check out our full recap of the reveals here.