SNK Corporation is keeping the festive spirits high, and they’re doing so by attempting to keep gamers in the mood for playing King of Fighters XIV by offering free DLC. The content includes a throwback outfit for one of the more popular characters in the series, Athena.
Over on the PlayStation blog SNK producer on King of Fighters XIV, Yasuyuki Oda, explained that their new 1.10 update for the game is now available for free. PS4 gamers can update the game right now and experience some of fixes and improvements they’ve made to the game, as well as download a free PS4 theme for a limited time featuring all of the different outfits Athena has worn throughout the King of Fighters series.
Additionally, they also decided to reward gamers with a bit of free costume DLC, with Athena sporting her classic digs from KOF ’98. You can check out the brief promo trailer below featuring Athena from King of Fighters XIV wearing her classic King of Fighters 98 outfit.
Athena only manages to take up the first 30 seconds of the above trailer. The next bit gives gamers a look at the graphical shader changes they’re making to King of Fighters XIV, which includes more specular highlighting, deeper gradient shades, and lowered saturation.
I’ve got to be completely honest here… I just don’t see the improvement. It looks differnet for sure, but I can’t say it looks better. Maybe if the contrast was higher or the color tones had deeper separation – it just looks like someone is tweaking with the shaders right now and they don’t actually know what kind of visual aesthetic they want to go for.
I think an inked outline with cel-shading would work well for King of Fighters. Alternatively, going for something like Sega’s Gouache Drawing Engine would be perfect as well. Something distinct but artistically flavorful.
Anyway, 1.10 also features new colors for the character costumes, so you can show off the more colorful side for some of the pugilists in the game.
You can expect to see the new graphics shader go into effect starting in January when the update rolls out for King of Fighters XIV.
