Just one day after releasing globally, developers SNK have announced a record-breaking World Championship for the new fighter Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves.
The game has already hit the headlines for its celebrity cameos with DJ Salvatore Ganacci and legendary Manchester United and Real Madrid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo both included as playable characters.
The global event will feature an astronomical prize pool for a fighting game tournament with SNK dedicating a hefty $2.5 million (£1.9m) to the newly announced event.
Thanks to this, the tournament will shatter records for fighting game esports as it eclipses the Capcom Cup Pro Tour’s $2m (£1.5m) prize pool which is for a year’s worth of Street Fighter 6 tournaments. To really put this prize into persceptive, the biggest annual fighting gaming event, the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), has handed out just over $2.9m (£2.1m) in total across 249 events since its inception in 1999.
The Fatal Fury World Championship will also be the first fighting game tournament to break into the top 100 biggest prize pools in esports history, overtaking a lot of prestigious events including both the League of Legends World Championships and Valorant World Championships from last year.
And if that wasn’t enough, the Fatal Fury tournament will alsoo reward the highest indidivual prize for a fighting game pro with the eventual champion taking home $1.5m (£1.1m) which is a 60% cut of the event’s monumental prize pool.
SNK announced that the World Championship will take place sometime in late 2025 and will be held in the United States but the specifics will supposedly be announced soon.
And before then, Fatal Fury COTW will also be a featured game in the upcoming Esports World Cup this summer which will feature another substantial $1m (£750k) prize pool for the game.
With so much potential money up for grabs, there’s a strong possibility that many fighting game pros may switch from Tekken and Street Fighter to compete in Fatal Fury instead. Especially with no official release date for Riot Game’s upcoming title, 2XKO, which is expected to be a big esports title once it does launch.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
