China reinvents the King of Fighters

Many gamers in the West grew up with an abundance of 90s smash hits like Super Smash Bros. and Street Fighter. But in China, The King of Fighters was among the very few iconic games that people got to play. Now KoF is back -- watch our video to find out more.

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Published: 5:00pm, 6 Jun 2018Updated: 8:27am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Can China save SNK, the developer of 90s smash hits The King of Fighters (KoF), Fatal Fury and Metal Slug?

That’s the question on the minds of many gamers ever since a group of mysterious Chinese companies (which appeared on paper as a former chicken meat supplier) quietly acquired the Japanese company in 2015.

Today, The King of Fighters has an anime series produced by a Chinese studio and a mobile game developed by Tencent.

The King of Fighters: Destiny is one of the major titles announced by Tencent this year. (Picture: YouTube/고금아)

While many gamers in the West grew up with Super Smash Bros., Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, to my generation of gamers in China, The King of Fighters is all of those combined and more.

The reason? SNK games were among the few that we got to play.

For 15 years until 2015, home consoles were banned in China -- which means many foreign games were unavailable. But SNK games were different: They were easy to hack and bootleg. That means many of China’s gamers could play them on their own computers or in underground arcades.