Last night (25), we had the Gamescon Opening Night Live, where tons of information of upcoming games were revealed. And among all of these announcements, SNK marked it’s presence with a KOF XV trailer that “shattered all our expectations”.

The Final Roster was confirmed

The trailer starts confirming the number of characters present in the game’s launch roster, 39 fighters will take part in this new tournament, with 30 already revealed and only 9 to be officially announced. At the character select screen, we can also see extra slots that appear to be reserved for the DLC fighters, since 6 characters are already coming in the first season.

Ash Crimson Makes a Return

Ash was officially confirmed after images were leaked on the internet confirming his return to the series since KOF XIII. Ash got a brand new redesign and is ready to brawl along with all the other KOF heroes. What kind of crazy combos will players be able to pull out with this controversial protagonist?

Gameplay Mecanics Explained

The trailer finally showed us how it will look during combat, the hud looks more simple and informative rather than flashy and stylized. The game will continue it’s old tradition of 3-on-3 battles with no tag.

And it also showed some information on the battle mecanics such as the “Shatter Strike”: the classic counter that could be performed by pressing C+D while blocking attacks; “Max Mode” is the game’s defining mecanic that unleashes the fighters true potential, allowing them to cancel more attacks and attacking faster in exchange of slightly lower damage; “Max Mode (Quick)” is an alternative version of Max Mode which works similarly to Guilty Gear’s “Roman Cancel”, by being performed mid-combos and during less time than the normal version of the ability.

“Rush” combos were a new mecanic introduced in this new entry that basically work as auto-combos, executed by the simple press of buttons in a specific order; The “EX” Special Moves are also present in this game but now can be performed out of Max Mode, just like KOF XIII.

Story Mode

KOF XV’s story will continue the events of the previous game and follow Shun’ei and the others as they unravel the mysteries of the tournament. During this section of the trailer, we saw two new female characters, a girl that seems like she’ll take the role of Shun’ei’s rival and another mysterious woman who clearly will be relevant to the game’s plot.

Online Mode

As it was already confirmed by KOF XV’s dev Yasuyuki Oda on Twitter, the game will have rollback netcode so that players can experience a smoother online experience. It will feature Ranked Matches, Casual Matches, Room Matches and Online Training as it was shown in the main menu.

Gallery Mode

This title will feature a gallery where you can see character profiles, a short animation by Masami Obari and the “DJ Station”: a menu that brings over 300 SNK hits mostly focused on the King of Fighters series that you can choose to listen to while you battle.

Pre-orders already avaiable

The game can be already pre-ordered on PS4/PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, rewarding for those who choose to do so a DLC pass for the 6 upcoming DLC fighters and Terry’s GAROU: MotW costume that probably will be purchasable for the ones who bought the standard edition of the game. Digital copies will get access to Leona’s classic costume from ’96.

The game will launch on February 17th so be sure to stay tuned for any new information regarding the game and it’s launch. If you want to check out the trailer by yourself, you can watch it below.