Leave Your Mark

This year's EVO, the long-running fighting game tournament, brought with it some exciting news. After over twenty years, we're finally getting another Mark of the Wolves!

image from Pinterest

That must have come as a relief after holding it in for twenty years.

Seriously, it's been twenty years, two decades, nearly a quarter of a century, since the previous installment of the Fatal Fury series. Do you have any idea just how much the world has changed in twenty years? People were still using VCRs, landline telephones, and slow-ass dial up internet. I had a friend download Mark of the Wolves for me, and he had to leave his computer on overnight to get all seventy megabytes of it. Do you know how long it takes to download a seventy megabyte file now? Depending on the speed of your internet connection, maybe as long as it takes to read this paragraph.

We don't know what SNK has planned for the next Mark of the Wolves, but it's probably safe to assume that after two decades of technological advancement, it's going to be a completely different game from the last one.

Before I go, here are a few other tantalizing tidbits from EVO. Tae kwon do master and slinky sadist Juri will be included in Street Fighter 6, alongside a new character named Kimberly, who looks a bit like King of Fighters XV's Isla and fights a bit like Maki from Capcom vs. SNK 2. Speaking of KOF XV, it's getting Samurai Shodown characters added to its own cast, which makes absolutely no sense... not that coherence is a high priority in fighting game storylines. Fan favorite Bridget will make their return in the latest Guilty Gear, and a whole lot of games are getting rollback, resulting in smoother, more reliable online fights. 

(Am I the only one who buys fighting games for the offline modes?)

Overall, if you're a fighting game fan, there's a whole lot to look forward to over the next year. After all this time, Mark of the Wolves 2. Wow.