The King of Fighters | |
---|---|
Genres | Fighting |
Developers |
SNK SNK Playmore |
Publishers | SNK |
Platform of origin | Arcade |
First release |
The King of Fighters '94 August 25, 1994 |
Latest release |
The King of Fighters XIV August 23, 2016 |
Spin-offs | Non-fighting games, comics, anime, live-action film |
The King of Fighters (ザ·キング·オブ·ファイターズ Za Kingu obu Faitāzu?), officially abbreviated KOF, is a series of fighting games by SNK that began with The King of Fighters '94 in 1994.
The series was originally developed for SNK's Neo Geo MVS arcade hardware, which served as the main platform for the series until 2004, when SNK retired the MVS in favor of the Atomiswave arcade board. Only two King of Fighters games were made on the Atomiswave platform (The King of Fighters Neowave and The King of Fighters XI) before SNK decided to discontinue using the platform for the series. The last arcade hardware for the series is the Taito Type X2, with its first usage coming with the release of The King of Fighters XII. Ports of the arcade games and original The King of Fighters games have been released for several video games consoles. The latest entry in the series, The King of Fighters XIV, was released only for the PlayStation 4.
The first game in the series, The King of Fighters '94, was released by SNK on August 25, 1994. The game featured characters from SNK's previous fighting game series Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, as well as original characters (including characters from other franchises such as Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier, adapted for a versus fighting game).