Nick Adams Games Blog

It’s no breaking news to say that the 2D fighting genre is incredibly niche. Infact if it weren’t for Capcom’s recent ‘HD remix’ re-releases of their popular 2D fighting games, the genre would remain extremely far away from mainstream games media attention.

In all honesty, it’s difficult to see room for significant innovation. During it’s heyday in the 90’s it was typical to add new characters and special moves to extend the lifespan of a 2D fighting game series.

Over time, this led to increasingly complex games which became more and more intimidating for beginners, and it was the developer’s very efforts to keep their games alive that ultimately sealed their fate.

A long standing 2D fighting game franchise, King of Fighters (KOF), has recently branched out with some curious spin off titles. The first big non-fighting spin off title was ‘King of Fighters Skystage’ a vertical side scrolling shoot ‘em up (or shmup) with KOF fighters floating through the air shooting bullets out of their hands.

It’s also recently been announced that there’s going to be a KOF online rpg. Complete with 3D graphics and online rpg elements.

For me, online play is the most recent significant innovation in 2D fighting games. Beyond that, it’s very difficult to predict which direction the genre will develop from here. Especially if you use the KOF franchise as a benchmark!