Now, from that title you might be wondering, “who’s Salvatore Ganacci?” a question that every SNK fan is currently asking each other right now. Best I can tell, he’s an obscure Swedish DJ. No, not in the game’s lore, in real life. To say he’s an odd and controversial pick for the latest character in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is, well, understating things to say the least. The reception to Salvatore Ganacci’s inclusion on the roster has been nothing but negative all around.

Of course, Salvatore Ganacci is not the first real person to grace City of the Wolves’ roster, Cristiano Ronaldo is famously and hilariously also a guest character in the latest Fatal Fury though, while Ronaldo is also a real person and a celebrity he also happens to be one of the most popular athletes of the modern day, and a huge draw among the Mexican and South American crowd (where SNK is at its most popular) so adding him, while bizarre, does make some sense. This same courtesy cannot be extended to Ganacci, who nobody knows.

Other fighting games often receive criticism for guest slots, such as Street Fighter 6’s inclusion of Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui who happen to be from SNK or Mortal Kombat’s and Tekken’s entire DLC roster, often times these criticisms stem from the fact that said guest characters basically steal slots from games with large histories and past rosters to pull from, and every character has their fans that want to see them back. SNK’s example here is more egregious, as these aren’t even fictional characters but real people put in the game for marketing (or in Ganacci’s case some speculate he’s only in the game due to the Saudi Arabian Prince liking his music) and SNK already has a DJ character that many actually like in the form of Duck King, whose spot was likely taken by Ganacci.

Guest character slots are always controversial, but this is probably the biggest example of controversy with guest character slots in fighting games to date, one not likely to be topped soon.