Yesterday was supposed to be a day of building hype and sharing excitement for the future of Fatal Fury, but basically the opposite happened instead and for reasons outside of the game’s new content itself.
SNK was quickly hit with backlash across the fighting game community for their Season 2 Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves reveal trailer.
Although the company itself has yet to confirm things one way or another, their trailer pretty clearly appears to use generative AI video throughout.
Many people probably had the same reaction where we quickly noticed something looked odd from the start and seeing Kim Jae Hoon standing on top of a building before it clicked with an — “oh.”
Outside of the brief snippets of in-game footage, the rest of the trailer seems to be comprised of AI-generated video featuring Jae Hoon, Nightmare Geese, Blue Mary and Wolfgang Krauser along with some environmental shots.
While a chunk (but not all) of the shots do look “better” than what we normally see out of AI “slop” online, its usage at all is not going over well with the community… at all.
“Hey! look at our new AI trailer! We can create this cool movie with less budget, hope you guys enjoy this and give us more money”
— HiFight(ハイファイト) (@HiFightTH) January 15, 2026
From both western and eastern / Japanese fans, the main thing almost anyone is talking about now is the AI video and not nearly as much the actual content itself.
And though much of the immediate ire is aimed at SNK, this pushback is also a message to other studios too.
Generative AI use remains a highly controversial subject in general, but especially so in the video game industry where many or maybe most in the West on the consumer and creative sides view its implementation unfavorably.
We’ve already recently seen similar backlash aimed at Larian Studios and the developers of Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 for their reported use of AI tools and assets, but it hadn’t really crawled into a major fighting game as far as we’re aware until now.
This comes as SNK is trying to win back players and bring new users in with something of a fresh start for Fatal Fury, but the company instead looks like it just shot itself in the foot in an unnecessary misstep that could end up driving more people away.
The devs and the artists behind CotW deserve all the praise in the world because CotW is a legit great game. But, my god, whoever person that gives that ugly AI promo a green light needs to go. -Sincerely, a long-time SNK fan.
— hrdnl (@hrdnl) January 15, 2026
City of the Wolves already received heat from the fighting game community at launch for its strange inclusion of soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and DJ Salvatore Ganacci as guest fighters, and it seems the marketing team didn’t quite get the memo that an AI video would not go over well right now either.
Out of anyone, the fighting game community is set up to be one of the most opposed to generative AI because our numbers include so many talented artists and creatives that are directly impacted by the effects of generative AI.
Not everyone is going to feel the same way and may think the pushback is overblown of course, but this is still a hard sell to the dedicated FGC.
It’s not hard to be a fan if your brain isn’t fried by the internet. You’re literally crying over nothing https://t.co/YCMqv5Iha7
— NUTMAN V1 (@Kaz_Acorn) January 15, 2026
With many / most current AI tools built on training data of other people’s existing works (and often / usually without their express permission), creatives and consumers alike have been pushing back against its usage at basically all levels.
And now SNK, a developer known for its iconic and beautiful artwork, is apparently jumping on the AI bandwagon now too.
The same SNK whose hand drawn character art defined an entire era. Genuinely depressing. https://t.co/ab6nuJCjo0 pic.twitter.com/3OoLNdFAhU
— Arya (@AryaTayebi) January 15, 2026
This is a bit of a strange move considering SNK had already been putting out some really cool classic animated teaser videos lately like the one implying Fist of the North Star’s Kenshiro is coming to the game, so why didn’t they just hire Masami Obari-san again for this trailer?
And if they wanted those types of realistic shots, why not hire cosplayers from the community to do it, who would have been jumping for joy to be a part of something like this — and would have had a much more positive response from the FGC.
Instead, SNK ended up with fans that have dedicated years of their life to their favorite games taking a step back because of these decisions.
i was a SNK moderator for 6 years and official Cotw Discord for a year, this trailer made me step down after all those years, i don’t / i can’t promote a product that i don’t support,thanks for all of those years friends, it was fun 🫡 bsky.app/profile/wari…
— Spicy Sauce (@spicysauce.bsky.social) January 15, 2026 at 10:12 AM
The easy answer as to why this is happening would be to point towards corporate and executive pressures to make more use of AI as the latest tech fad all of these companies are investing in, but we can’t say for certain where this decision came from for Fatal Fury and who approved it.
Fatal Fury’s main developers likely had little to no say in how the trailer and marketing was handled for this, but that doesn’t mean they’re free from its use either.
It has been pointed out that some of SNK’s current development job hiring positions are requesting knowledge of AI tools and generation too, so they are seemingly at least looking at using it within their games as well.
Using AI like this is so shameful, SNK. I can’t even be excited for the monthly character release schedule, given that your job descriptions have gen AI plastered all over them. Your artistic legacy has been carrying you for a decade of botched releases, and now you have nothing. https://t.co/yv27y88In9 pic.twitter.com/s086CHEp4L
— Shimada Tiger 🐯🍔 (@ShimadaTiger) January 15, 2026
Ultimately, there’s still a disconnect between SNK and the consumers they want to engage with their product whether that be coming from corporate, marketing, management or some combination of departments.
We’ve seen community pushback make game studios reconsider their use of AI at least a couple of times already, but the industry as a whole is still steering more into uncharted territory as executives push to make the most out of their investments into AI.
This conversation isn’t going away any time soon with the big AI arms race still in full effect, and it will continue to evolve as the technology and investors do too.
According to a report from Automaton Media, over 50% of Japanese game companies may already be using AI tools in some fashion for their development pipeline including Capcom and Sega, so we’ll probably be seeing more situations like this again in the near future.
This is the best fighting game of the current generation. It’s not even particularly close IMO.
And yet they make it SO. FREAKING. HARD. to be a fan of this game/this company sometimes. https://t.co/H91HecZp5Z
— Jay Snyder (@JayViscant) January 15, 2026
EventHubs has reached out to SNK for comment on their apparent use of AI video, but they’ve not responded as of the time of reporting.
There is still technically a chance that SNK took the time to train their own AI model using their own artwork and content catalog along with those that they officially licensed.
That could make it arguably a more “ethical” use of generative AI tech, but how much that matters would depend on a person’s individual opinions even if it was the case.
We can’t know what SNK’s intention or usage really was, however, if they remain silent on the subject.
Personally, I do really like the new Fatal Fury a lot and want to see it grow to its full potential with success for both the players and developers, but I also can’t fault anyone who wants to stay away from the game because of this unnecessary marketing misstep, especially as someone working in a field already heavily impacted by AI technology.
Either these companies are running on the logic of “bad PR is good PR” cause any kind of conversation is engagement regardless of how negative the reception is
Or the people in charge are genuinely being paid top dollar to be completely out of touch with community demands
— SchoolBus (@Sometimes_Fendo) January 15, 2026
The fighting game community is making their voice heard loud and clear right now that AI is not wanted here, so we’ll have to see how different development teams will respond and not just SNK.
But this is not going to be the last time we see official AI-generated content in our fighting games.
What should have been a time of excitement and speculation turned into one of avoidable controversy and discord, and that just sucks for everyone.