The legendary 3-on-3 fighting game series that united rival brawlers from SNK Playmore’s classic arcade franchises celebrates its 15th Anniversary in style with the release of The King of Fighters XII. For the first time in its history, this epic martial arts showdown has undergone a complete graphical overhaul. The antiquated character sprites used over the past 14 years have been dropped in favour of all-new, high-resolution fighters fluidly animating across painstakingly detailed, 100% hand-drawn backgrounds.

Dear King of Fighters XII fans,

This week's launch of The King of Fighters XII represents the culmination of four years of hard work to deliver a rebirth for the KOF franchise, but several key issues have arisen since its release that must be addressed. Rest assured that SNK PLAYMORE is fully committed to supporting the King of Fighters XII community by working to further improve the gameplay experience.

We're pleased to announce that the next software update will address the animation glitch that users have encountered in which Elisabeth's character sprite becomes 'frozen' for the duration of the round when the character Raiden performs a specific move on her.

While software update solutions are being devised, we can offer some tips to those users who are experiencing exceptionally poor online performance. First, we suggest limiting the number of players in a room to two, as the addition of a spectator with a slow connection can currently create latency for all users in the room. Also, if your Internet connection is configured behind a firewall using NAT Type 3, we recommend reconfiguring your setup to utilize NAT Type 1 (for PS3) or an 'open' setting (for Xbox 360).

Also, we'd like to take this opportunity to explain one feature of the Xbox 360 version. When playing online with the Xbox 360 version of KOF XII, players who continually battle the same opponent in multiple Ranked Matches in the same lobby will not receive additional True Skill Rank Points. This is an intentional decision to keep players from abusing the system to reap massive rewards by preying on one player. If you want to earn True Skill Rank Points, you must make a new room or leave simply leave the room and come back.

-SNK Playmore

Ignition Entertainment's The King of Fighters XII is coming to North America and Europe in July 28, 2009.