In April, SNK expanded The King of Fighters XIV with a number of new characters available as DLC. While many thought that this would be a one-time thing, it seems that SNK may be gearing up to update the game with even more characters.
This speculation comes from The King of Fighters XIV‘s PC version on Steam, specifically a few entries discovered on Steam datamining site SteamDB, as well as datamining performed on the game’s code itself. The SteamDB entries for the game list a number of as of yet unidentified DLC items. While it could be easy to just dismiss these as entries for cosmetic DLC, investigation into the game’s code by known dataminer X-Kira seems to indicate otherwise.
X-Kira has found entries for possible DLC characters in the game’s code. Some of these entries possibly hint at the return of veterans such as Oswald, Blue Mary, Shingo Yabuki, and Hinata. The other entries however seem to point to new characters such as “Ymd,” and “HDR.” Entries named “Van,” “Kangil,” “Sissel,” “Meiland,” and “Catalina” have also been found, however some players have pointed out that these may be entries for existing characters, such as Vanessa, Gang Il, Hein, Mian, and Zarina, since they’re not listed in the screenshots that X-Kira posted.
In addition to these characters, there also appear to be entries for new stages as well, as the total number of files for stages has 3 more than that which is actually in-game at the moment.
Take note that this does not mean that DLC characters (and stages), especially the ones mentioned, are coming. It’s entirely possible that these are just placeholders or incomplete assets, and SNK may or may not decide to use them to expand the game.
Sources: X-Kira; SteamDB
