Players who pre-ordered got to start playing on February 14, but today, 17th February, is the day that the game was officially released worldwide.  So, SNK posted a little message:

?KOF XV?
KOF XV released 2 years ago today — February 17, 2022!

Thank you all so much for the fun times and epic matches so far.
We truly appreciate your continued support of KOF XV now and into the future! pic.twitter.com/aLirLrfJhj

— SNK GLOBAL (@SNKPofficial) February 17, 2024

Right now, about 17 hours from being posted at 9am in Japan, there are 75 replies, 2k likes, 56k views, 538 retweets.  It’s not really indicative of the whole fanbase, let alone the playerbase, but from what I can see, every third reply is asking for season 3.

Well of course they asked, that’s what we want, that is, the people who actually play the game, but is that amount of people going to be enough to pay for SNK’s development costs? Or is SNK fully focused on COTW? Or… are we going to get an announcement at the SNK World Championships or the EVOs?

We talk in depth about it on the podcast

Tldr: anything could happen but if there are no announcements at EVO US 2024, that’s a wrap for KOFXV and it’s time to get ready for COTW.

It is curious, and it makes you think, if you were SNK, would you always have a dlc on sale every month, competing with Tekken8, or focus all your dev team on COTW? Would you take a risk on a season 3, remembering that some players want a very specific character and won’t pay for anyone else.  Season 2 got a mixed reaction, but we don’t know the exact sales.  What we do know, however, is the usage of players in the top 500 ranked.

Top 500 Ranked players character breakdown for KoFXV. I sort of whipped this up on the fly as per a request, so it isn't the prettiest. Hopefully it's still useful in some way to the KoF playerbase. #KOF #KOFXV #KOF15 pic.twitter.com/qgiWIta74N

— AlietteFaye | Day -232 A.K.I. Main (@AlietteFaye) February 15, 2024

So, what does this mean exactly? Well, you need to remember these are the immortals, they usually play to win, and somehow the arguably low tier DuoLon is getting played while the buffed and arguably more dangerous Najd is getting left on the shelf. Might be a topic for a podcast… Feel free to leave a comment and stay tuned for the next podcast!