The King of Fighters XII

The King of Fighters XII (KOF XII) is to be the next installment of The King of Fighters series. SNK Playmore has announced that it is abandoning the Atomiswave system and is moving its most popular game franchises to the Taito Type X2 arcade system. The game is currently due to be released in the second quarter of 2009.

KOF XII uses the usual 3-on-3 team system with each fight consisting on 5 rounds. However, the Tactical Shift System from The King of Fighters 2003 has been removed. DMs (Desparation Moves) will still require super gauge stock to perform but are now executed in real-time without warning the opponent first. Some moves take time to charge while others can be pulled off instantly.

It has been revealed that the game will undergo a complete graphical overhaul, confirmed by Nona, artist in charge of the art in the The King of Fighters XI endings. All the sprites used in previous games for over 10 years will be dropped and will be replaced with new high definition sprites. The programmers have stated their intention is to create the "ultimate 2D fighting game". Nona reaffirmed this once again in this year's The King Of Fighters Year End Party 2006 in Tokyo.

It was later revealed at AOU 2008 that KOF XII will use newly-drawn 2D sprites on detailed 2D backgrounds. Producer Masaaki Kukino informed Kotaku that the game is one hundred percent hand drawn, there being zero cel shading in the game.

On February 14, 2008; the first gameplay footage was revealed to the world showcasing the new, much larger, higher-resolution pixel art sprites at the Arcade Operators Union Amusement Expo (AOU) 2008. The footage also revealed the presences of Benimaru Nikaido, Terry Bogard, Athena Asamiya and Kim Kaphwan in KOF XII. The game is scheduled to make an appearance at the Tokyo Game Show which is running at the Makuhari Messe from October 9th to October 12th 2008. The SNK staff decided to create the new graphics during 2005 and 2006, and commented that they spent more than three times longer developing it than the previous game. Due to the time demands of drawing such detailed frames of animation, as well as the decision not to incorporate older assets as previous games in the series have, there will be only 20 playable characters, the lowest number ever in a game from this series.