This week some really sad news hit the gacha mobile world. Despite SNK Corporation doing extremely well as of late, with their latest entry in the King of Fighters IP, King of Fighters XV, doing pretty well and keeping a relatively loyal playerbase as we lead up to the release of the highly anticipated Garou: City of Wolves on the horizon things seem to be shutting down on SNK’s mobile platform. The King of Fighters All Star, a mobile gacha game, is going to shut down come October 31st of this year.
The King of Fighters All Star was relatively popular, especially on social media. Famous for its various crossovers, ranging from SNK’s own properties under its umbrella such as King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, and Samurai Showdown to crossing over with game rivals such as Capcom’s Street Fighter to probably most famously crossing over with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) of all things The King of Fighters All Star was a fun little crossover mobile game where you could watch The Rock or John Cena fight alongside Iori Yagami and Geese Howard.
While this is sad, keep in mind many gacha games, especially those that aren’t making absolute bank, are usually run by skeleton crews, and that a natural moving of resources and manpower can lead to some of these gacha games shutting down, it’s a story as old as the genre itself. This is likely what happened to The King of Fighters All Star.
So, while you may mourn for the WWE x Fighting Games crossover, don’t be sad that it’s over, be happy that it happened in the first place. And it’s not like there isn’t any SNK goodness on the horizon, as stated before, we’re going to see Garou: City of the Wolves released soon in early 2025.