With just a few months away until launch, SNK saw it right to unleash its wolves to the public. Metaphorical, not literal ones: the Fatal Fury kind.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves hosted its open beta for PC and consoles from last Thursday until today (20-24 February 4pm GMT+8). Yours truly played a heckaton of matches using all eight characters available -Terry Bogard, Rock Howard, Mai Shiranui, B.Jenet, Preecha, Hotaru, Kain, and Vox Reaper. Suffice to say, the gameplay department does not disappoint.

In fact, we daresay it may be 2025’s best fighting game so far from a mechanical standpoint (head here for more details). Strictly a 1v1 procedure, two fighters duke it out to best of three until the victor is decided (via KO or timeout). Each of them have their own skills and talents: Terry and Rock are considered all-rounders while Kain relies on keepaway and projectiles, only going in with his horizontal Panzer lunge when he confirms a combo.

As a Fatal Fury and Garou: Mark of the Wolves old-school player, I gravitated towards Hotaru’s fireball, poking, and divekick gameplay (think a better Chun-Li but as a little girl who can sprint instead of dashing). When I confirm hits, I can chain EX moves after EX moves for big damage but at the cost of filling up the REV meter; any more overuse and I’m in an Overheated state, which puts me in a bad place and a frame disadvantage.

As far as new characters go, Preecha is my top pick: she’s a faster and limber version of series veteran Joe Higashi, which is apt given that she’s his student. She can whip out quick projectiles, do cross-up hurricane kicks, and can mix up opponents with her overhead inputs of her Preecha Combination special attack. She can still throw out a good poke or so, but can’t anti-air most jump-ins to save her life (especially when compared to better options from Terry, Rock, and Hotaru).

Even if it’s just a fraction of the whole title, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is oozing style and flair. From the win poses to the idle animations, there is a lot of charisma dripping from these eight fighters that just feels right in an SNK title.

The beta is awesome and gives a good sliver of what to expect from the full game. The network and matchmaking, however? Those elements really need work.

What Needs Fixing?

Simply put: this is not SNK’s best work when it comes to online play. In fact, it probably shows off the company’s ineptitude to host a stable beta where the matchmaking works. They had issues with Samurai Shodown and with The King of Fighters XV (at a point in time), so one would think they would have their head on straight for their big game and major return to the Fatal Fury series.

When I get matches with Malaysian and Singaporean players, the game and its netcode works fine save for a disconnect or two after 20 straight rounds. However, there are times when I know it’s peak playing hours in my country, and somehow I get matches from South Americans and US players, thus horrible lag and rollback issues that come with it. This isn’t just on Thursday, but for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on my side, though thankfully it isn’t that frequent. However, loads of other fighting game players and the larger communities seem to have a huge problem with it and aren’t as tolerant as myself, with matchmaking taking longer than 2 minutes to happen.

matchmaking in the CotW beta is taking 5+ minutes

haven't been able to successfully join a lobby with a friend

pretty rough out here NGL

— John Crofts (jmcrofts) (@crofts) February 20, 2025

Thankfully, series producer Yasuyuki Oda said that he knows what’s going on and his team is hard at work to make sure the game comes out right network-wise. In fact, there’s a chance we may get a second beta test session. For now, you can fill up the form that’s linked on the X post below.

Please give us your feedback to help us improve. #CotWobt https://t.co/Zkx38S9uMq

— Yasuyuki Oda ???? (@snk_oda) February 23, 2025

Other issues to bring up:

-Feint should be its own button. As fun as it is to map it to the REV button + Heavy Kick, some players might not find those inputs ergonomically-sound. Maybe put it as the same input as a taunt or even on L1 (for PlayStation controllers).
-Online ranking system for online play should be on a per character basis, not per account, similar to Street Fighter 6. Right now, this game’s beta is on a per account basis, meaning that if you reach a high rank using one character and want to switch to the next, you’ll most likely be fighting and losing matches on that high rank just getting the hang of the new character. This discourages players from experimenting with the rest of the roster, so hopefully SNK can follow the standard set by Capcom and change up the ranking system for ranked play.

Long story short: very solid gameplay and fighting game action, matchmaking needs work. Let’s hope that SNK can turn things around in the next few months before it ships. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves will be out on 21st April for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series.