The Fatal Fury series from SNK began back in 1991 as part of the fighting game boom that dominated arcades across the world, and its popularity led to the series releasing several games throughout the ’90s. In the years since, those classic games have been ported to consoles, but there hasn’t been a new entry in the series since 1999.
Until now, that is. The series is returning with Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves in 2025, ending a drought of 26 years without a new title. It will feature the return of characters from past games, most notably series star Terry Bogard and his protege Rock Howard. Other fan favorites, like Mai Shiranui and Billy Kane, will also be included and get updated designs.
City of the Wolves will act as a continuation of the previous game in the series, Garou: Mark of the Wolves. The T.O.P. system, now called the S.P.G. system, makes a return. It allows you to pick a section of your health bar (either the start, middle, or end), and when your health is in that range, your S.P.G. will activate.
When your S.P.G. is active, you’ll regenerate health, have boosted attack power, your power gauge will fill faster, your REV Meter will fill slower, and you can perform REV Blows. Those last two points are part of an important new mechanic in City of the Wolves called the REV System. REV Blows blend together offense and defense, allowing you to strike hard while also shrugging off enemy attacks.
You can combo into these after REV Arts, which can be used after a special move to perform a stronger version of said move. And REV Guard is a unique type of block that creates more space between you and your opponent than a regular block and also eliminates chip damage from special attacks.
All of these actions build up the REV Meter in the bottom left corner of the screen, and once the meter is full, you’ll become overheated. While in this state, you won’t be able to use REV actions anymore and your guard gauge will decrease whenever you block attacks. If the gauge runs out, your guard will be crushed and you’ll take longer to recover from being hit.
Your REV Meter slowly reduces as time passes, as well as when you walk or dash toward your enemy, land an attack, or successfully use Just Defense or Hyper Defense. The former happens when you block an attack at exactly the right moment, while the latter happens when you do a forward input at exactly the right moment of a multi-hit attack.
This REV System adds a strategic layer to each fight, since you can’t simply use powerful REV actions over and over. You need to keep an eye on your REV Meter and balance aggressive offense with well-timed defense to avoid overheating.
For the first time in the series, you’ll also be able to choose between two different control schemes that will determine the button inputs needed to execute each of these moves. Known as Arcade Style and Smart Style, they’re designed to provide options for players experienced with the series as well as newcomers diving in for the first time.
If you’re excited to dive into Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, it’s available to pre-order and wishlist now ahead of its release date of April 24, 2025 on PC, PS4/5, and Xbox Series X/S. Pre-order bonuses include Terry’s classic costume from Fatal Fury 2 and early access to the game on April 21, three days before release.
The base price of $59.99 also includes Season Pass 1 and five DLC characters. We already know who two of those characters will be: Ken and Chun-Li from Street Fighter, the first non-SNK collab characters ever featured in a Fatal Fury game. This marks the continuation of a collaboration between the two franchises after Terry and Mai were featured in Street Fighter 6.
If you’d like to pre-order, you can visit the official website to pick the platform you’d like to play on. Or if you want to join the community, you can follow SNK on Twitter or Discord.
