Welcome back to South Town. This year marks FATAL FURY: CITY OF THE WOLVES’s first year on the Evo mainstage. A sequel over twenty years in the making, City of the Wolves brings back its unique health-based Selective Potential Gear system, along with expanding the robust Just Defense parry system. New to CoTW is managing the REV Gauge, a Drive-esque system that allows for enhanced versions of specials, safe cancels on block, and a powerful armored strike. CoTW aims to bring a new generation of fighting game players to the classic SNK landscape we’ve come to know over the years.

But new players have a massive mountain to climb if they want to catch up to SNK’s legacy talent, and no player epitomizes that quite like the King of SNK - Xiaohai. Xiaohai is, without a doubt, the greatest KoF player of all time as a four time Evo champion, including KoF XV at last year’s Evo. You might know Xiaohai best from his Street Fighter 6 2024 EWC win, but make no mistake - SF6 is the sidequest, and dominating here is the focus. In fact, he’s only lost to a single person so far in this game. His dominance in this title is truly unmatched, and he’s only just now getting started.

Of course, we can’t talk about Xiaohai’s singular tournament loss without addressing who served it to him. Anime FGC legend GO1 has taken his talents to Fatal Fury and hasn’t missed a single beat. The Evo 2019 champion has since taken his talents to Fatal Fury, and after winning Combo Breaker 2025, he went on a dominant run at the Esports World Cup, taking down Xiaohai in a 5-3 set with Kain. Right now, it’s safe to expect GO1 to continue his dominant run as the godslayer - can he keep this form up to take home his second ever Evo title?

From EWC, let’s take a look at the players Xiaohai met in grands at his other majors, Evo Japan and CEO - both very seasoned veterans to top level competition in fighting games. In grands of Evo Japan, Xiaohai squared off against Fenritti - a man who needs no introduction to any anime player. Widely considered one of, if not the best BlazBlue players of all time, Fenrich would go on to stick around the top level of any game he threw himself at, and City of the Wolves seems to be his latest passion. A gold at Brussels Challenge, beating GO1, to go alongside the silver at CEO seems to indicate that Fenrich is hungry for his second Evo gold medal.

Xiaohai’s opponent in grands of CEO, Nemo, similarly, shouldn’t be too unfamiliar to anyone familiar with top level fighting games. Nemo’s been atop the world of fighting games since the days of Street Fighter IV, and he’s found major wins and showstopping runs throughout the entirety of three full SF titles. But it seems like, similarly to Fenritti, City of the Wolves is his current calling. Nemo’s been locked in on travel - at Evo Japan, Nemo went on a losers run from outside of Top 8 all the way to third, only losing to Fenritti twice, and at CEO, he ran through the competition, only losing to Xiaohai twice. Despite his years of competition, Nemo’s never taken an Evo title - could he be the first Evo Vegas champion for Fatal Fury?

King of Fighters carries a reputation with it as one of the most global fighting game scenes in the entire world, and there are few regions that manage to punch so far above their weight class in terms of “SNK Talent Per Capita” quite like Taiwan’s scene. E.T and ZJZ should be very familiar names to anyone who’s been following KOF for a while. Both of them are two of the best modern King of Fighters players of all time. Both have Evo Japan and Vegas rings for King of Fighters XIV and XV - E.T with his Vegas 2017, Japan 2024, and Japan 2025 wins and ZJZ with his Japan 2018 and Vegas 2022 wins. Upon Fatal Fury’s massive esports boom ahead of the Esports World Cup, both have found themselves top tier, global esports sponsors - E.T with Team Falcons and ZJZ with T1, and both look to be carrying their momentum clearly into Fatal Fury - ZJZ with an event win at Battle Arena Melbourne, and E.T with dual Top 4 finishes at Headstomper and CEO. These two are no strangers to the level of sheer consistency and focus required to take an Evo championship - can they find a way to break past Xiaohai and continue their legacy here?

South Korea, too, is a region that’s no stranger to top level fighting games and no shortage of Evo championship titles - after all, just look at Knee’s trophy case - but perhaps one of the most well known fighting game players from the region isn’t known for his results. Even if you’re not well studied in your FGC history, you’ve probably seen clips of Poongko taking off his shirt right before a grudge match of Street Fighter IV. Since those days, where his results were at their strongest, winning a Capcom Pro Tour over the likes of Nemo, Bonchan, Xian, and yes, Xiaohai, he’s mostly stayed out of the spotlight from top level competition. But something hit different for him and when Fatal Fury released, he immediately gelled with it, signing to Weibo Gaming and embarking on worldwide travels alongside fellow top level Korean competitor Xyzzy. Together, both of them have been travelling the world, and their cross-continental flights ended up paying off, as both qualified for the Esports World Cup at European events. Poongko’s since Tweeted that he’s done with taking off his shirt going forward - he wants to be remembered for his gameplay above all else, and nothing else would be more memorable than a win at the game’s largest event. (He also said it was because he was getting too old for it.)

If there’s a singular region that’s synonymous with King of Fighters in modern culture, however, it’s Mexico. This year at Evo, the Mexican contingent is showing up in force, with top level King of Fighters players such as Wero Asamiya, ViolentKain, and Seis mx showing up in full force. LatAm’s a region that has a long history with SNK, and although the region’s leader in DarkAngel wasn’t able to make it out to the event this year, the rest of the talent in the region has more than proven themselves capable of making deep runs on the world stage.

But let’s make it clear - stateside, all eyes are currently on if the underdog home team contingent can defend. Leading the pack is Evo 2013 KOF champion Reynald, who’s similarly made an explosive start in Fatal Fury with a Grand Finals at Combo Breaker. Combo Breaker would also mark multigame FGC talent NYCChrisG’s qualification to the Esports World Cup with a bronze. Despite placing so strongly at Combo Breaker, the United States remains the constant underdog in Fatal Fury currently - but who’s to say what can happen with the homefield advantage.

Fatal Fury's brought together an obscene smattering of FGC talent from all over the genre, from top level Skullgirls player Cloudking to Under Night champion Senaru to Melee/Strive Evo champion Leffen to literally Justin Wong. Make no mistake, this Fatal Fury bracket’s loaded fully to the brim with talent for its debut at Evo - who will be the first player to put their handprint on FGC history?