[UPDATE]
Well that didn’t take long. Soon after we published our article, Nobuyuki Kuroki posted a clarification, saying his new B. Jenet design isn’t related to a Garou: Mark of the Wolves sequel.
“I drew a picture of B.Jenet in a hobby. There are no relations with the sequel to MOW,” Kuroki said on Twitter.
His response is curious, as he doesn’t say outright that a sequel isn’t happening – on the contrary, he seems to allude to the existence of a Mark of the Wolves sequel.
We don’t want to mince his words, however, so for now we’ll still hold out hope that SNK will make a Mark of the Wolves sequel.
[ORIGINAL ARTICLE]
We’ve caught wind of a potential tease for a new Garou: Mark of the Wolves.
Now before you go punching holes into walls out of excitement, the news comes via SNK game producer Yasuyuki Oda, who recently changed his Twitter avatar to the following image:
This Valentine’s Day-themed image has the characters B. Jenet, Terry, and Rock, all of which are playable in the original Garou: Mark of the Wolves.
Following this, The King of Fighters XIV art director Nobuyuki Kuroki posted a completely new image of B. Jenet, which you can view below:
This clearly looks like an in-development character model, and something more along the lines of what fans predominantly said they wanted The King of Fighters XIV to look like (i.e. a more stylized, cel-shaded, 3D style instead of a less stylized, 3D style). The model style is very similar to KOF XIV, however it has a layer of cel-shading slapped onto it.
It’s worth re-iterating this is all speculation, however the timing is quite interesting considering Oda heavily teased that he definitely wants to make a Garou: Mark of the Wolves sequel. The event he made this announcement at was even called “Mark of the Wolves.”
“I think people here are thinking, ‘Hey what are you doing, aren’t you forgetting about Garou?‘” Oda said at the time. “I’m going to do something about it before I die (laughs), so please keep on supporting us.”
If you’re wondering why SNK diverted their main fighting game series into two competing IPs: Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters, here’s a brief explanation. While the former was more of a direct competitor to Street Fighter (right down to the mechanics), the latter was more of a differently styled fighting game, but still a direct competitor nonetheless.
SNK is really trying to win back old fans alongside new ones, between their official rebranding and nostalgic new logo with SNK Corporation, aggressive updating to The King of Fighters XIV via fan feedback, courting talent from developers like Capcom, and more.
Could we be seeing a Garou: Mark of the Wolves with former senior Capcom designer Neo G at the helm? Sound off in the comments below with your hopes and thoughts!
