2025 is just a few weeks old, and already a wide range of games have made it to the list of much-anticipated releases of this year. Surprisingly, a few of them weren’t released in the last decade or two. At a point, when the gaming world is celebrating Team Ninja’s revelation of the upcoming Ninja Gaiden 4’s trailer after more than a decade, SNK came up with its next entry in the most popular fighting series, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, after twenty-six years of disappearance.
The final entry in the Fatal Fury series is Garou: Mark of the Wolves, in 1999. Since then, this gaming series went into a never-ending pause, which is finally going to end this April, with the release of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. This will be the newest entry to continue the story of the game.
Before launching the game globally, SNK will run an open beta to check the feedback and implement the changes. While the game's official release date is scheduled to be April 24, 2025, the beta run is just a few weeks away.
The open beta starts on February 20 at 12 am PST and will continue until February 24 at 11:59 pm PST. The best part is that this beta is open to all. So, players don’t need to pre-order it. Once it starts, everyone can access it on their PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S platforms. It doesn’t require any active Game Pass subscription or PS Plus membership.
Follow the below steps to join the beta once it goes live:
1. Once it begins, go to the store of PlayStation, Xbox, or Steam and open the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves page.
2. Install the beta.
3. Launch it, and you are sorted.
A twenty-six-year gap is not a joke. The gaming world has gone through severe changes in this time. A lot of impressive fighting games have made their place in the genre, including Street Fighter, Tekken, Dragon Ball, etc. These games offer advanced fighting mechanics, along with impressive visuals and smooth gameplay. Some of them, in fact, include popular anime characters to make a strong fanbase. Therefore, the competition is going to be hard for SNK to find its place after this long interval.
There’s another potent obstacle for this upcoming Fatal Fury game: most new-gen gamers have probably never heard of this series. Also, veteran players who have played these games may not feel attracted to the next installment after this long gap. A lot of them have probably forgotten the story. So, attracting their attention from the above-mentioned franchises is a big deal to accomplish for SNK.
To overcome these and get into competition with the already-established series, the upcoming Fatal Fury game needs to bring impressive fighting and gameplay mechanics. Most importantly, these need to be included in the open beta for players to get the official game after the global release.
Irrespective of challenges, SNK is hopeful about the open beta of City of the Wolves. The company is confident that it is making a game that will attract both newcomers and veterans. In a blog post, SNK reveals, “The open beta offers the public their first opportunity to experience the modernized action of City of the Wolves at home, featuring two distinct control schemes tailored to engage both newcomers and seasoned pros.”
According to the blog post and latest trailer, some features are sure to make their way to the game in open beta, including the REV system, game modes, playable characters, various battle modes, etc.
The REV system is revised in the upcoming game. This system is what makes the Fatal Fury games unique, and with the revised version, during the beta, players can use unique offensive options like REV Arts, REV Accel, and REV Blows from the very beginning of a battle. Players can keep using them until they touch their highest limit and the REV Meter overheats.
Next comes different game modes during the beta run. The game is going to offer three online modes and one offline mode. The online modes include Ranked Match, Casual Match, and Room Match. The offline mode is the Training mode.
About the playable characters, the beta run is predictably going to offer, Terry Bogard, Rock Howard, and Preecha, who fit in every build. Aside from that, the open beta will probably feature Marco Rodrigues, Tizoc, Vox Reaper, Kim Dong Hwan, B. Jenet, Mai Shiranui, Kevin Rian, or Hotaru Futaba. Nothing has yet been announced, so it’s impossible to say which characters are going to make their way to the beta run.
In fighting games, the most important thing is the fighting system. Multiple Fatal Fury classic battle systems are going to make their way to the game, including, Just Defense, Dodge Attacks, Combination Attacks, and Feints.
Finally, the beta is about to feature two fighting schemes: Arcade style, which includes, technical inputs, and Smart style, which allows players to perform flashy combos.
Looks like the game has a lot to provide players with; it’s just that its presentations must be advanced to match the taste of new-gen gamers to succeed in this competitive gaming world.