It’s a bit wild to think that The King of Fighters was born 30 years ago to marry together the worlds of Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Psycho Soldier and Ikari Warriors into something new that would stand the test of time in its own right.
To help celebrate KOF’s 30th anniversary, SNK is now releasing some of their original concept art and illustrations for the first few entries for fans to get a new look at the franchise’s history.
They of course kicked things off with the very beginning of the iconic crossover with King of Fighters ’94.
SNK shared the concept art of a handful of the original teams including for Kyo, Terry, Mai, Yuri and Team Ikari Warriors.
It’s interesting to see these pieces of fighting game history now, especially when the final product looked notably different.
These outlined illustrations had to be converted into pixel art to go into the games themselves, so the line art is recognizable but unique.
We’ve included some of the final character endings in the gallery, so you can compare them for yourselves and see how King is left out of the drawing for the Women Fighters.
Now, SNK has also dropped some of the original character / team illustrations for King of Fighters ’95 as well.
We can see what the artists were going for with Iori and Kyo before they were colorized along with four pieces of early Shinkiro artwork of the teams.
These art drops are part of the 30 reveals SNK has planned for KOF’s big anniversary though it’s unknown if there’s going to be any new game or media content included right now.
For their current plans, Mai Shiranui was recently revealed for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves sporting a brand new costume besides her signature red dress.
You can check out the current selection of classic KOF art below compared to their final products.
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