 Super Smash Bros Ultimate is getting the full SNK treatment. Not only has Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury, the King of Fighters, been added as a playable character, but various other classic fighting game characters have been added as me costumes, and even more characters have been added as window dressing in the Fatal Frame stage. The amount of effort that went into completely modeling background characters for this stage is incredible. So why did the team at Zora Limited go to so much effort? Simple. Masahiro Sakurai is a really, really pig fan of SNK fighting games. There was a time in his past when Masahiro lived in arcades. SNK games, particularly the King of Fighters series, were his bread and butter. He could go 50 matches in a row undefeated. In Japanese arcades it's common to have cabinets with two screens facing away from each other, so that the player can't actually see their rival. This was groundbreaking to a young Masahiro who felt his heart thumping at the joy of playing against an anonymous opponent. This mystery can be fun, but it also led Masahiro to a moment that he's deeply regretted ever since. We've told this story before in our video all about Masahiro's history, but it's worth revisiting a different time he told the tale, emphasizing different details. Special thanks to Source Gaming and Soma for this translation. Said Masahiro, I was slightly aimlessly playing King of Fighters 95, when someone joined me playing on the other side. Despite feeling that I'd really want to just play alone, the fight was on. I landed my moves cleanly and quickly took the first two games. One more team member to go, and victory was mine. Weird. Something's not right. My enemy is way too unresponsive, unresistant. Thinking something was strange, I stealthily used the reflection in the window glass to take a peek at my opponent, and, to my surprise, they were… a normal couple. And the current player was the girlfriend. Oh no! I was filled with regret and remorse. I shouldn't have been feeling good about myself, landing Xanret Tsuken combos and whatnot. On the final round, once she had switched to her boyfriend, I did handicap myself, but by then my intent was obvious, and it was far too late. I don't know my opponent's thought of me, but I personally left with a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. Masahiro has cited this as a turning point in his life. He no longer plays fighting games in arcades, in part because of the shame of this moment, but also because he just doesn't think he can compete anymore. Instead, he prefers to play casually at home with friends, such as Toby Fox. When Nintendo presented Masahiro with a list of potential DLC fighters for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, he spotted that among the names was none other than Terry Bogard of the King of Fighters fame. Masahiro's team was very tired by this point, having gone straight from work on the core Smash title to creating DLC fighters. Nevertheless, Masahiro decided that they would cram as much content into this character's inclusion as possible. This meant liaising with SNK to create a slew of new me fighter costumes as well. It also meant modelling background characters to appear as cameos in the King of Fighters stage, purely because Masahiro wanted this to be the best possible tribute to his beloved fighting games. One character, Mai Shiranui, was purposefully left out. In Masahiro's words, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is for good boys and girls of many different ages, so we decided not to feature her. Which… well… The team also had a difficult time choosing what music from SNK's history should be included. A lot of the specific Terry music didn't seem like a perfect fit, so they went through much of the company's history, picking all of their favourites before narrowing things down to just fifty tracks. They submitted all of these to SNK, expecting them to approve just a handful. To their surprise, SNK's response was, OK, thus all fifty songs were included within the DLC. The inclusion of Terry Bogard as well as many SNK references is Masahiro Sakurai's love letter to Arcade Fighting Games, a major inspiration for the Super Smash Bros. series. This is very much appreciated, but Masahiro, if you are watching this and you're not, please take a holiday you've earned it.