The preventing sport neighborhood is in the center of a fierce debate over the quantity of visitor characters coming to Deadly Fury: City of the Wolves.
On September 9, SNK introduced two extra visitor characters coming to City of the Wolves: Manjiro “Mikey” Sano and Ken “Draken” Ryuguji from Tokyo Revengers. These common shonen anime protagonists mark the newest in a string of visitor characters for the sport, which embrace Chun-Li and Ken from Avenue Fighter, professional footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, music artist Salvatore Ganacci, and Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star.
That’s loads of visitor characters for a sport that’s solely just a little greater than a 12 months outdated — and whereas Ken and Chun-Li make sense given Capcom and SNK’s wealth of crossovers over the years, 5 visitor characters from completely unrelated franchises feels a bit extreme to some gamers (myself included).
There’s a pattern sweeping by way of common preventing video games currently the place non-fighting sport characters are being included in main titles like Avenue Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and of course, City of the Wolves. For instance, Ultimate Fantasy 7’s Tifa Lockhart is coming to Avenue Fighter 6 subsequent 12 months, whereas Baki’s Yujiro Hanma is ready to make a splash in Tekken 8 in 2027.
Whereas these one-off characters aren’t ruffling too many feathers inside the preventing sport neighborhood (Tekken is a franchise identified for together with one or two oddball company), the sheer quantity of visitor characters in CotW is elevating eyebrows — particularly given the undeniable fact that they don’t come from different preventing video games.
“Lmfaoo, including something bruh. Kenshiro was dope, however what the f**ok is that this,” one participant wrote on X.
“Funniest preventing sport roster of all time bro,” one other said.
“Love these two, however how did they get in over Baki, or hell, even Tokita Ohma?” one other asked, referencing common martial arts anime Kengan Ashura (which, funnily sufficient, celebrated a collaboration with Avenue Fighter 6 not way back).
It’s price noting that preventing video games on the whole aren’t any stranger to visitor characters from completely completely different worlds; the Mortal Kombat franchise is probably the greatest instance of this, having added characters like Robocop, Omni-Man, Homelander, the Terminator, Alien’s Xenomorph, and lots of different comparable fighters to its rosters over the years. Nonetheless, the argument might be made that these additions adopted a common theme in step with the Mortal Kombat vibe and universe, whereas City of the Wolves’ company are throughout the place (in actual fact, it’s the first time a real-life athlete has been put in a mainline preventing sport — and what’s Ronaldo doing in South City, anyway?).
No matter the case could also be, SNK clearly sees a path ahead with these visitor characters, and I’m truthfully intrigued the place they’ll take the franchise subsequent. Both method, the sheer quantity of characters they’re including to CotW per season is laudable… although not everyone seems to be hyped for every fighter they’re placing out. (Talking of which, can we get some extra girls on the roster?)
Virginia Glaze
IGN Information Editor / Cat Rescuer / Martial Arts / Combating Recreation Girlie
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s Information Editor. With ten years of expertise reporting on video games and leisure, she’s obtained a storied background in the preventing sport neighborhood, influencer information, and viral on-line tendencies. Discover her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.