SNK Playmore, the developer responsible for the King of Fighters has been at a roller coaster ride since it was acquired by a Chinese corporation who initially wanted to give the game it's Marvel Formula, but was later on discarded because, luckily the CEO of the company realized, that it will be a big waste of time and money.
Of all the SNK Playmore's popular title, King of Fighters was their biggest, without a doubt. The game, when it was released a couple of decades ago, was indeed the only competition for the super popular Street Fighter, and at some point was very close to taking over the throne.
Players and fans of the iconic game wanted to see the resurrection of the game, as it is, and SNK Playmore did not fail the fans, but according to reports, the higher ups of the organization wanted to see the King of Fighters on a different perspective, meaning, it will be released as a 3D game similar to Virtua Fighter, Tekken, and SoulCalibur.
The direction of the game did not entirely please the gaming community as the 3D characters look really off when the company released a snippet of the game. However, the gaming community and experts are still hoping for SNK to change their minds and stick to the old version of the game, which captured the hearts of the action fighting community.
King of Fighters was initially released in 1994 succeeding the company's previous successful offering of Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting. The game gained instant popularity because of the genre of the game itself. It went on to release succeeding versions of the game until it halted in 2010 due to the company's financial issues.
The game's success stemmed out to other Medias like a manga adaptation, films and animation, as well as OST CDs of the game. King of Fighters is expected to be released in 2016 for the PS4 platform.