FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves Review

When SNK was acquired by the Saudi Arabian Electronic Gaming Development Company in 2022, the company reassured the public that the acquisition would not affect the content of their games.

It all happened during a tumultuous period of foreign investment funds and corporations buying their way into several major gaming companies, so concern about how it could shape the direction of the legendary fighting game developer was only natural.

After playing FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves on PC, it feels like that promise from 2022 has been broken, draining away any chance of the game having a cohesive aesthetic or style. Beyond some interesting combat mechanics and a handful of promising new character designs, there isn't much here that makes the game feel like a standout hit.

Like a lot of fighting game fans lately, many have found themselves in a weird spot. Street Fighter 6 doesn't vibe for some; Tekken 8 feels like it's in recovery mode; Guilty Gear Strive has pushed people to take breaks; and Mortal Kombat 1 is fine but not necessarily compelling.

People say fighting games today are too easy, too accessible, too shallow, too unbalanced, too offense-heavy, or too unstable—ultimately just not fun. Enter FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves, a sequel decades in the making.

The original Mark of the Wolves, released in 1999, was a no-nonsense fighter with tight mechanics, solid depth, and a clear ethos: the better player wins. In today's landscape of comeback mechanics and neutral-skipping tools, this 2025 successor tries to recapture that spirit.

FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves doesn't have a deep story—and that's perfectly fine for what it aims to be. Each character has their own arcade mode ending, but Rock's storyline seems to be the central thread.

In it, Southtown has become too peaceful since Geese's death, and someone decides to stir up trouble by hosting a new King of Fighters-style tournament. That setup is simple, but for a franchise that has never focused heavily on narrative, it works enough to justify moving from fight to fight.

The Episodes of Southtown mode add additional narrative flavor. It's far more RPG-esque and clearly designed for anyone who wants to experience more direct personality and character dynamics outside standard arcade progression.

If you're into seeing fighters interact, exchange banter, and show off personality quirks, this is where those moments happen. It is also being updated post-launch, which gives it value beyond the initial story drops.

While arcade mode might earn a few chuckles or a handful of amusing exchanges, Episodes of Southtown does a better job of holding your attention when the focus is on the cast rather than the conflict. It rounds out the single-player package in a way that gives you more reasons to hang around the world of Southtown beyond endless online fights.

Instead, every piece of the package feels like it has been plucked from an entirely different source. Some menus look sleek and stylish, while others feel barebones and basic. The cast occupies such a wide spread of tropes and styles that understanding when or where the game takes place becomes difficult unless you're firmly situated within the SNK universe lore.

Two of the included characters are even real-life individuals—soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, currently playing in the Saudi Pro League amid ongoing controversies, and DJ Salvatore Ganacci, whose ties to Saudi Arabia are tied to the LIV Golf sporting venture.

Fighting games have long embraced wild guest characters, but the reasoning behind these picks remains baffling. Usually, a guest character taps into a fanbase or a piece of media tied closely to the game, or at least pulls from a group likely to try the fighter specifically for that cameo. It's hard to imagine the crossover of the fandoms of these two men with the competitive, nostalgia-driven audience of a Fatal Fury sequel.

Even the soundtrack feels questionably uneven. Each stage theme has been created by various English and European DJs, but most tracks fall into a monotonous, snooze-worthy beat that not only fails to match the tone of their respective stages but often doesn't sound good on its own.

This uninspired or cameo-fueled content is sprinkled throughout the game, making it difficult at times to appreciate the parts that do shine. Because when FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves leans into its mechanical identity, there is genuinely interesting material to unpack.

Much like the original game that it follows, FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves is an intricate fighter made for the dedicated and mechanically driven. The biggest example of this is the new REV system, which gives each fighter an additional meter that fills and empties depending on how offensive or defensive your style is during battle.

Rather than spending meter to perform stronger attacks, you can freely perform techniques like Rev Arts, Rev Blow, Rev Accel, and Rev Guard. The catch is that each action increases your Rev meter, and going past 100% into Overheat disables Rev actions entirely, leaving you vulnerable to guard breaks.

However, the game relies heavily on advanced techniques and layered systems, making it difficult for casual players and newcomers to keep up. Even with Smart Controls providing auto-combos and simple one-button access to certain moves, there remain countless nuanced systems—feinting, braking, multiple defensive options—that new players won't fully grasp for a long time.

The game thrives at its highest skill ceiling, with room for expressive, technical combat, but when played at a lower skill level, it doesn't spark the same joy found in flashier, more approachable contemporaries like Tekken 8 or Street Fighter 6.

Coming into FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves, thinking prior KOF experience will give you an advantage, proves to be misleading. Short hops and the familiar four-button layout help, but everything else demands fresh learning.

You've got feints, feint cancels, dodge attacks, Just Defend, Guard Cancel, Hyper Defense, Braking, REV Guard, REV Blow, REV Accel, Selective Potential Gear (S.P.G.), and more. It's a lot, and feeling overwhelmed is understandable.

Yet once you get hands-on, the system surprisingly clicks. It's dense without being disorganized, technical without being arbitrary.

Defense, in particular, stands out. Modern fighters are often criticized for lacking defensive nuance, but that's not a problem here. Three block types, two dodge attacks, and four rolls give you countless ways to keep yourself alive. If you're getting run over, it's not because tools are missing—it's because your defense isn't sharp enough.

Offense is equally fierce. Projectiles matter, pokes have strong reach, and counter hits—especially Wild Punish states—hit hard. Watching your character float mid-air or crumple while your opponent gears up for a devastating combo reinforces how punishing mistakes can be.

Single-player options help soften the steep learning curve. Arcade mode offers straightforward battles, while Episodes of Southtown provides a fuller, more engaging reason to keep fighting through character-focused missions.

Textbox dialogue, map-based fight selection, and encounters with non-playable mob characters add structure and variety. Even if the writing is nothing special, the loop gives enough momentum to keep you engaged when stepping away from online play.

Since this is a traditional fighting game, puzzles aren't part of the structure, but combat systems form the core of the experience. The REV system stands out as the most universally approachable part of combat. Managing it feels intuitive, adding an elegant layer of tension.

The tutorial barely scratches the surface. While it explains Feints, it doesn't highlight the variations, frame data implications, or the pressure setups you can build with REV Run. These are important concepts that newcomers would benefit from understanding early.

Online performance is equally uneven. SNK provides a full set of modern features—ranked, lobbies, leaderboards, ghost data—but the matches themselves can suffer. When the rollback behaves, the netplay feels great, but only about 70% of the time. The remainder ranges from mild stutter to 2–6 frames of rollback, sometimes worse. Ten frames of rollback in a precision-heavy fighter is brutal, turning careful neutral and hard-earned hits into frustrating lost opportunities.

FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves looks fantastic, building on the KOF XV visual style but pushing further into a bold comic-book aesthetic. Animations feel crisp, stages are energetic, and character designs hit a strong balance between stylish and readable. Some effects—especially REV Accel and certain elemental visuals—can appear a bit busy or slightly off. Gato's REV Art smoke effect stands out as not quite polished, though that's a small nitpick.

Menus are a mixed bag. The main menu is heavily stylized, almost like a desktop OS, but it feels clunky to navigate. Everything else—the character select, options, lobbies—looks standard, making the overdesigned main menu feel strangely isolated.

Music is a complex blend. Some songs fall short, particularly the generic stage themes made by European DJs. However, character themes typically have a strong sense of personality and flair. Despite the layout problems, the primary menu track sounds fantastic. Although Salvatore Ganacci's contributions seem unconventional compared to SNK's typical jazz- and rock-inspired sound, they work well as a whole.

Before its release, many were concerned that FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves would be another specialized "Discord fighter" that would soon become obsolete, with reviewers riveted to Steam Charts, waiting to declare it dead. Those worries seem exaggerated.

Despite its rough edges, this game is well worth picking up. It's been a while since a fighting game required such active, in-depth participation—not simply picking up a character or a few matchups, but really comprehending every aspect of the game. It's a really enjoyable challenge.