King of Fighters XIII is now finally relaunching with new online netcode to new platforms.
SNK just formally announced King of Fighters XIII GM, coming to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 this November 16, 2023.
Originally released in 2010 in the arcades, and then came to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 the next year. This was the last game SNK would release in 2D, and also the last game they would make before they would be acquired by Leyou.
These details matter when it comes to the surprisingly difficult path SNK chose to tread to make King of Fighters XIII, as well as its predecessor, King of Fighters XII. While Capcom chose to embrace 3D graphics in the new generation with their 2.5D Street Fighter games, SNK sought to recreate the visually impressive sprites of their previous games, but for a new generation of consoles, with HD sprites.
This entailed hand drawing every graphic in the game, with no cel shading involved, but the process was even more involved than that. Each character and asset was first rendered as dot pixel graphics, than rendered in 3D, than remade in 2D to fit the look the studio was looking for. SNK also took the opportunity to redesign their characters, changing their physical builds and appearances aside from the art style.
King of Fighters XIII is possibly the most beautiful pixel art video game ever made. Even newer efforts at this art style, such as, say, Blasphemous, Yes, Your Grace, Or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, can compete with the large sprites and detailed animations that King of Fighters XIII has.
Its competitive viability is a different matter, as the game had been long dismissed for overly difficult execution requirements, and swinging the other way with too simplified a control scheme for simple mode. Before Street Fighter 6, SNK had tried to strike the balance between casuals and competitive players and fallen short of what Capcom would achieve later.
However, this didn’t mean there was no scene still trying to mold the game into something they could build a community around. After SNK’s acquisition, and the release of King of Fighters XIV, the company continued to receive fan demand for a rerelease of this game.
It’s for this reason that King of Fighters XIII GM releases today with updated netcode for both platforms. SNK had actually been openly testing the netcode for the past few months in the buildup to this release. Unfortunately, this netcode is likely also the reason it isn’t seeing a release on Xbox or PC, or at least not yet.
In any case, for gamers who have a particular historical or competitive interest in this King of Fighters XIII, SNK has answered our prayers and is finally bringing it back.
