A newcomer's guide to Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves

If you’re American, you might not understand how big a deal Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves actually is, or why people are so excited about SNK’s recent revival in the first place.

SNK is one of the premiere developers of fighting games, and as a rule, that genre tends to be all about momentum. Most of the genre's biggest titles now have 30 years (or more) of history behind them, going all the way back to the heights of the arcade scene.

But while a generation of arcade dwellers in Japan, China, South Korea, Mexico, and Brazil grew up on The King of Fighters (especially 1998) and Samurai Shodown, American players might never have heard of them at all. SNK’s games never really caught on in North America the way that Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat did.

There’s no one reason why SNK ended up being somewhat obscure in America. In its heyday, SNK relied heavily on exclusive hardware, such as its trademark multi-game cabinets and its notoriously expensive Neo Geo home console. SNK also never really embraced the 3D era outside of a few outliers like Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition, and it only ever ported a few of its games to other consoles. All of this added up over the course of the '90s as the industry evolved, and eventually led to SNK going bankrupt in 2000. Over the next 15 years, the SNK name and legacy went through several different iterations before undertaking a big comeback in 2016 with The King of Fighters XIV.

Right before its closure, however, the original version of SNK released some of the best-regarded games in its overall catalog—including 1999’s Garou: Mark of the Wolves, which (until now) served as the final entry in the Fatal Fury series.

These days, Fatal Fury is probably best known as the home franchise of Terry Bogard and Geese Howard, both of whom have staked out their own reputations from cameo appearances in other series. Terry was recently released as DLC for Street Fighter 6, represented SNK in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and has appeared in a handful of other games like Fighting EX Layer, while Geese was a guest fighter and a frequent tournament pick in Tekken 7.

Back in the day however, Fatal Fury was SNK’s flagship fighting game, created by several veterans of Capcom’s Street Fighter II. Originally released in Japan under the title Garou Densetsu (“Legend of the Hungry Wolf”), the series began with Terry’s journey to get revenge on Geese, who’d killed his father when Terry was a kid.

After spending his life training, Terry returned to his home of South Town to enter the King of Fighters tournament alongside his brother Andy and their buddy Joe Higashi. Terry won the right to face Geese in the tournament’s grand final and, after a pitched battle, punched Geese off the roof of his skyscraper.

Mark of the Wolves picked up a decade later. Terry spent the ensuing years as a foster father to Geese’s son Rock, raising him in South Town and teaching him some of Terry’s style of martial arts. When a mysterious figure announced a revival of the long-defunct King of Fighters tournament, both Terry and Rock opted to enter.

It’s worth noting here for new fans that despite sharing the name of the key tournament, SNK’s The King of Fighters franchise is set in its own exclusive continuity. This is how Geese can be alive in The King of Fighters but long dead in City of the Wolves, and why the KOF team from Art of Fighting is about 20 years younger than they should be.

“KOF exists in a different dimension from Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting,” director Yasuyuki Oda told us in a recent interview. “In the KOF universe, the characters don’t age.”

Oda originally worked at SNK between 1993 and 2000, where he was a developer on several of the company’s fighting games, such as Fatal Fury Special. Oda went on to work at the prolific Japanese developer Dimps for 14 years, where he contributed to games like Street Fighter IV before returning to SNK after its revival in 2014. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is reportedly the project that Oda has been trying to make ever since he went back to SNK.

In fact, a sequel to MOTW was in the works back in 2000, but its production ended when SNK went bankrupt. For at least 20 years, fans have passed around leaked concept art that was rumored to be from that “Garou 2” project. Now that City of the Wolves is finally confirmed, we wanted to make sure to ask Oda about what could’ve been.

“A sequel to Mark of the Wolves was being developed at that time,” Oda said. “However, as so much time has passed since the last entry in the series, it would be difficult if we just made a sequel to it as is and would be hard to understand for most players. Because of that we are making Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves to be a sequel to the entire Fatal Fury series, while still using the sequel to Mark of the Wolves as a reference.”

At the end of Mark of the Wolves, Rock won the new tournament and met the organizer, Kain Heinlein. Kain revealed that Rock’s late mother, Marie, was his sister and that he’d held the tournament in an attempt to take over South Town. More importantly, Kain told Rock that Marie was alive and being held captive by an unknown rival somewhere in South Town. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves picks up shortly thereafter.

“This time, the story centers around Rock,” director Yasuyuki Oda told us. “After Geese’s death, Kain and others begin moving behind the scenes to seize control of South Town.”

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves also features the reappearance of several core members of the Fatal Fury cast. Mai Shiranui is part of the core roster for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, while Andy and Joe are scheduled to appear in the first season of DLC.

“They’ve each taken on students and matured into respectable adults,” Oda said. “Now in their 30s, they’re in their prime as fighters, and their combat styles have evolved to reflect their growing mastery.”

“We’re also planning to support the narrative through online media,” Oda continued. “The prologue is narrated by Satoshi Hashimoto, the former voice actor for Terry.”

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves releases April 24 on the Epic Games Store.