Today, SNK Corporation announces a leadership transition for its CEO, Kenji Matsubara. From a press release dated May 12, 2025, the statement notes that Matsubara will transition to an advisory role, where he will “continue to lend his expertise and vision.” The announcement follows recent data regarding SNK’s latest release, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, showing the game severely underperforming in both sales figures and player counts. Despite an egregious marketing budget and backing from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, all signs point to Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves massively flopping. What happened?
Data shows low sales and players for ‘Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves’
To be clear, no evidence suggests Matsubara’s transition from CEO has any relation to City of the Wolves. The SNK statement has no mention of Fatal Fury. Thus, any relation to the two is purely speculative, though it’s hard not to connect the dots.
According to recent Japanese physical game sales, as estimated by Famitsu, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves has sold only 6,302 copies on PlayStation 5 in its first two weeks of release. This puts SNK’s release behind several other titles released on the same day. Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics (6,672 sales on Switch), Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (9,825 sales on PS5), and The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (26,732 sales on Switch) all outperformed Fatal Fury.
Of course, one country’s sales figures on one console aren’t enough to call Fatal Fury a failure. Taking Steam player numbers into account, however, paints a broader picture.
According to data from Steamcharts, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves currently has an all-time player peak of 4,592. As of this writing, the highest number of concurrent players in the last 24 hours is 1,204. As shown on SteamDB, the City of the Wolves open beta test had an all-time player peak of 9,280. This means that roughly half of the players participating in the open beta test didn’t return for Fatal Fury‘s release.
How ‘Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves’ misses the mark
In many ways, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves was hamstrung from the start. While SNK devotes most of its efforts toward its King of Fighters series, the Fatal Fury series has remained dormant for 25 years. With the former series already featuring many of Fatal Fury‘s characters, it’s hard to imagine why players familiar with SNK’s niche titles would make the switch.
The City of the Wolves open beta tests didn’t help its cause, either. Criticized by players and content creators alike, the beta test suffered from poor netplay, a lack of training features, and clunky, unappealing menus. Upon full release, Fatal Fury improves on several of its beta test’s shortcomings. Though seemingly not enough to attract the crowd it needs to succeed.
With all due respect, Fatal Fury looks fine and is a fantastic fighting game by all accounts. But compared to more eye-catching titles like Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and Guilty Gear Strive? It’s easy to see why a casual audience would pass on it. SNK fighters are notoriously complex, meaning engaging single-player content, robust training modes for all characters, and simple, user-friendly menus are mandatory to retain a casual crowd. Unfortunately, City of the Wolves fumbles on all of them. Thus, resulting in an experience lacking the adhesion necessary to hold a player’s attention.
Wrong audience for uninvited guests
Falling short in many areas, it’s easy to assume Fatal Fury must be operating on a smaller budget. Which leads to the elephant in the room. The seedy underbelly of SNK’s funding and its likely influence on the series’ direction. The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which owns a controlling stake of SNK, is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Professional footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and Swedish DJ Salvatore Ganacci both have close ties with the Saudi Prince. Both were announced as guest characters shortly before the release of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. While the broader fighting game community has largely grown fond of Ganacci? Many feel alienated by the inclusion of an accused rapist in the game.
So, who does that leave to play Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves? Apparently, the general public, as SNK’s marketing budget seems to have crept into all aspects of mainstream entertainment. Last month, the Fatal Fury logo was featured prominently as the center stage advertisement at WrestleMania 41. A Fatal Fury advertisement took up the center screens of Times Square in New York. A four-minute Fatal Fury skit featuring content creators IShowSpeed and KSI was used to promote a high-profile boxing match. It’s unclear why, but SNK seems to think targeting people who have never heard of Fatal Fury is their best move.
This year’s SNK World Championship will include a $2.5 million prize pool for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Whether SNK will continue its momentous support afterwards is anyone’s guess.
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