Yuri Sakazaki Announced For King Of Fighters 15

Ever since the King of Fighters 15 announcement in January, SNK has revealed a new character with their own trailer every Thursday morning in Japan time. Meant as a way to show off the game's visuals as well as each character's changes within the new King of Fighters 15 engine, these expected announcements had been a way for fans to expect their favorites to return to the series.

With a small deviation from the norm following the announcement of Chizuru during the Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable podcast, the weekly announcements resumed last week with the reveal of Andy Bogard. To recap, the first three announcements, Meitenkun, Shun'ei, and Benimaru, rounded out the Hero team. The announcements of Kyo, Iori, and Chizuru rounded out the Three Sacred Treasures team. Other individual characters including Joe and Andy have yet to round out a 3-man team, and with the announcement of Yuri, she joins the previous two as a fighter without a current team as of yet.

First appearing in Art of Fighting as the damsel in distress, and in Art of Fighting 2 as a playable character, Yuri Sakazaki was one of the original fighters to be included in the King of Fighters '94 as a part of the Women's Fighters Team. Yuri has been in almost every King of Fighters to date, often joining her brother and father as a part of the Art of Fighting team. Compared to her sibling and father, Yuri has her own flair to the Kyokugenryu Karate fighting style, borrowing moves from other fighters and occasionally fighters from Street Fighter to some capacity.

While not a direct focus of the trailer, King of Fighters fans and veteran Fatal Fury fans alike will notice the new stage revealed during the trailer. Yuri spends most of the trailer fighting in the Pao Pao Cafe, a stage featured in several KOF and Fatal Fury games in the past. While it is unknown if this will be Yuri's team stage in the future, it can be speculated that with the inclusion of the cafe, fighters related to the venue like Bob Wilson and Richard Meyer may have a chance to make an appearance.

A new fighting game tournament has been revealed by WePlay Esports. The new competition will consist of three back-to-back tournaments, going over some of the fighting game world's most popular titles.

The WePlay Ultimate Fighting League offers an impressive $150,000 prize pool split evenly among the eSports event's three competitive brackets, with events for Mortal Kombat 11, Soul Calibur 6, and Tekken 7. The event is to take place beginning on March 25th for the Mortal Kombat 11 tournament, ending on April 11th with the conclusion of the Tekken 7 event.

This follows a successful end of 2020 for WePlay Esports, especially in comparison to the cancellation of EVO 2020, one of the fighting game world's biggest events. December saw the eSports firm host WePlay Dragon Temple, a Mortal Kombat 11 LAN tourney. The upcoming event will follow suit to the previous one in allowing no in-person audience, an obvious precaution to take due to the ongoing pandemic.