Earlier this year, the Fatal Fury series made a comeback after 25 long years with the launch of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Although we and many others gave the game decent ratings, it clearly didn't live up to the community's expectations, and shortly after a very sluggish start, the company's CEO resigned.
Now, the company seems to have another long-awaited comeback in the works, as they show off a tengu mask on social media and write that fans will know what they mean. This could possibly imply one of four things: that Dead or Alive boss Tengu is coming to the aforementioned City of the Wolves as a guest character, that SNK legend Mr. Karate is coming to City of the Wolves, there is an Art of Fighting anime coming... or that we will soon see the new Art of Fighting that was confirmed last year.
<social>https://x.com/SNKPofficial/status/1980208620504535164</social>
The latter is what most people are hoping for, and the mask undeniably looks like it belongs to Art of Fighting boss Mr. Karate (who provided a historical twist in the 90s). The last game was Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior from 1996, which means that the series will turn 30 next year, and celebrating that with a new title would obviously be fitting.
Hopefully, we'll find out more soon. For a new Art of Fighting to be more successful than City of the Wolves, it will probably need to be more in tune with what the community wants. The latter received a lot of criticism for including guest fighters from the real world, including the controversial soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo (possibly a result of SNK being owned by the Saudi Mohammed Bin Salman Foundation).
What do you think SNK is trying to say with this post? Is it one of our three theories, or is it something to do with the Art of Fighting character Robert, a nod to Blue-Eyed Samurai, or something else entirely?