In the early 1990s, a number of different fighting games debuted or had, by that point, turned into successful franchises – Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and so on. But 25 years ago one game arrived to be crowned royalty above all others: The King of Fighters.

Debuting first in the summer of 1994, the inaugural title in the series was The King of Fighters ’94, developed and published by SNK. The 2D fighting game was a crossover between several other of SNK’s franchises – mainly Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury, but also including updated versions of characters from other games like Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier.

The plot is focused on how these characters come together for a new King of Fighters tournament. This one is hosted by the villainous Rugal Bernstein, who opts to host the tournament and feature teams from around the world consisting of skilled fighters from each region. Accordingly, players control one of the eight available teams rather than picking individual characters; these are Team Italy, Team Mexico, Team China, Team England, Team Korea, Team Japan, Team USA, and Team Brazil.

The King of Fighters had originally been conceived as a side-scrolling beat-em-up that too would have been a crossover between Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury, but was reworked into the fighting game series it is today. SNK had wanted to use existing characters in order to hook preexisting fans of their respective franchises, but ended up adding some original characters in order to appeal to a whole new and presumably younger audience.

The game was received well upon its initial arcade launch, and was later ported to home consoles. The King of Fighters received yearly installments through 2010, and would receive overarching storylines such as “The Orochi Saga,” “The NESTS Chronicles,” and “Tales of Ash.” In December 2018, after a few years away from the franchise, SNK announced that they were working on a new King of Fighters title, to release sometime in 2020.