On Oct. 2, 2025, Reject’s very own Laggia won the SNK World Championship 2025’s Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves bracket, beating the legendary fighting game player Goichi “GO1” Kishida and taking home $1.5 million in prize money.

Laggia’s path to the grand finals was filled with veterans such as Zeng “Xiao Hai” Zhuojun, who appeared in his winner’s semifinal match. Their set went the distance, with Laggia barely able to edge it out and close the set. Then he had to face Tseng “ZJZ” Chia-chen, a two-time Evo champion whom he quickly dispatched 3-1.

His final test was against the legendary GO1 in the grand final. The first set went GO1’s way convincingly with a 3-1 score. However, Laggia was able to answer back with his very own 3-1 set to end the tournament, take home the trophy and claim the largest first-place prize money in fighting game history: $1.5 million.

The win makes Laggia not just the first Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves champion but also the first back-to-back SNK World Championship winner, having been able to win 2023’s version of the tournament.

He was also crowned as the first SNK Champion after fighting all of the other winners of the tournament from the King of Fighters XV, Samurai Shodown and Art of Fighting 3 brackets. He was able to defeat them and take the belt home.

On Oct. 6, 2025, Evo France released a schedule of what will be on the tournament’s main stage starting on Oct. 10, Friday. The tournament currently has over 3,000 attendees, making it one of the biggest fighting game tournaments in Europe.

Here’s the schedule according to a graphic that Evo France posted on its X account (every time slot is GMT+2):

Friday (Oct. 10):

• Domitys Cup (11:00 am-12:00 pm)
• Cosplay Exhibition (01:00 pm-02:00 pm)
• Street Fighter 6 Pools (02:00 pm-06:00 pm)
• Hunter x Hunter Nen x Impact Top 8 (06:00 pm-09:15 pm)

Saturday (Oct. 11):

• Dragon Ball FighterZ Top 8 (11:00 am-03:00 pm)
• Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves Top 8 (03:15 pm-06:30 pm)
• Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising Top 8 (06:45 pm-10:15 pm)

Sunday (Oct. 12):

• Guilty Gear Strive Top 8 (10:00 am-01:30 pm)
• Tekken 8 Top 8 (01:45 pm-05:45 pm)
• Street Fighter 6 Top 8 (06:00 pm-10:00 pm)

Evo France, even before the actual tournament, has already broken some records regarding attendees. On different dates, the organizers announced that it had become the biggest Street Fighter, Guilty Gear Strive, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising and Tekken tournament in all of Europe. Additionally, the organizers said that 93 nationalities will be represented for the inaugural Evo France.

Evo France will start on Oct. 10, 2025, and run until Oct. 12, 2025.

The organizers have already announced that Evo France will be back next year.

SNK Corporation announced on Sept. 19, 2025, in a press release that the SNK World Championship 2025 will take place at DreamHack Atlanta from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2. The prize pool of the whole tournament is over $4 million, divided among the four games in the circuit.

While the $4-million prize pool has been at the center of attention on social media, over half of it is allocated to the top finishers of SNK’s latest game, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Here’s the prize pool for each game:

• Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves: $2,500,000
• The King of Fighters XV: $1,000,000
• Samurai Shodown: $500,000
• Art of Fighting 3: $100,000

The prize distribution for Samurai Shodown and Art of Fighting 3’s top finishers is divided by logical increments; however, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves and The King of Fighters XV have large variances between placements.

First place for the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves bracket pockets $1.5 million, whereas second place gets $300,000. The prize distribution hasn’t gone unnoticed online, however, and has been a central talking point in the fighting game community, because they expected a much fairer distribution.

For example, the latest Counter-Strike 2 major tournament, BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, had a $1.2-million prize pool. The distribution was $500,000 to the first place, which constitutes 33% of the whole prize pool, and the second-place team received $170,000, which is 11% of the prize pool.

In the upcoming Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves tournament, the first-place winner gets $1,500,000, which is 60% of the prize money, almost double the Counter-Strike 2 major tournament, and the second-place finisher gets a measly $300,000, which is 12% of the total prize pool.

SNK also mentioned that the last-chance qualifiers will happen at DreamHack Atlanta. Two spots remain available for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, one spot for The King of Fighters XV and four slots for Samurai Shodown are up for grabs.

Gaming.News has reached out to SNK for comment.

Goichi “GO1” Kishida has won the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves tournament at the Esports World Cup, earning $300,000 for himself and 1,000 club points for his team, DetonatioN FocusMe. He faced Zeng “Xiao Hai” Zhuojun, often considered the greatest The King of Fighters player of all time.

SNK created both the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters franchises, resulting in some legacy skills transferring between the two games, such as movement. With that being said, Xiao Hai was considered the favorite to take the tournament due to how dominant he has been in both franchises.

However, it was GO1 who took the tournament and beat him with the character Kain. In the finals bracket, all games are played first-to-five. This means that there is a possibility of a full nine-game set, but GO1 dominated both his quarterfinal and semifinal matches with a swift 5-1 victory. Upon reaching the grand final, GO1 finished the job with a convincing 5-3 score, not giving Xiao Hai the ability to breathe and muster a comeback.

GO1 is a top player in a variety of fighting games, including Street Fighter 6, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Under Night In-Birth, Guilty Gear and Melty Blood. He won EVO 2019’s Dragon Ball FighterZ bracket over another very dominant player, Dominique “SonicFox” McLean.

EWC tournament rules are a bit different compared to normal fighting game tournaments. While most fighting game tournaments use a double-elimination bracket, EWC only had a single-elimination bracket. To compensate for this, they made all sets a first-to-five instead of the standard first-to-three sets.

Zeng “Xiaohai” Zhuojun has taken the CEO 2025 title over Naoki “Nemo” Nemoto, further cementing his claim as one of the best Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves players in the world. Xiaohai never lost a set in his run to the grand final and did not give Nemo the chance to reset the bracket either.

Both Nemo and Xiaohai started in the winner’s bracket, facing each other in their first match. Xiaohai quickly swept Nemo, winning 2-0. Nemo had to claw his way to the grand final by facing strong opponents such as Lin “E.T.” Chia-hung, Laggia and Kazuyuki “KojiKOG” Koji.

All of his matches against them were pretty close, but Xiaohai is on a different level, finishing the whole tournament with a 3-1 win over Nemo and claiming the CEO 2025 title for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves.

Xiaohai is considered one of the best fighting game players in the world, especially for SNK games. He recently won City of the Wolves’ bracket at EVO Japan 2025, which earned him an invite to SWC 2025 Finals and EWC 2025 for the game. In addition to that, he won last year’s Street Fighter 6 EWC, which means that he’s the only fighting game player right now with an invitation to EWC for both Street Fighter 6 and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves.

Weibo Gaming announced that Lee “Poongko” Chung-gon is joining their team as a Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves competitor. Poongko is a multi-fighting game player and is a strong competitor in all of the games he’s had his hands on.

He has competed in The King of Fighters 13, The King of Fighters 15, Tekken 7, Street Fighter x Tekken, Street Fighter 4, Street Fighter 5, and Street Fighter 6. However, he saw the most success in Street Fighter titles, qualifying for the Capcom Cup 2015.

Poongko is also a very strong Tekken player, finishing third at EVO 2016. With strong placings in both Street Fighter and Tekken, two of the main fighting game titles in the world, he’s considered a formidable opponent in tournaments. Additionally, he’s one of the few players who have earned an EVO top-8 finish in both a main Street Fighter and Tekken title.

This time, it seems that Poongko will only focus on one game, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. The game recently announced a tournament with a $2.5 million prize pool. The winner will take home $1.5 million, which is the largest one in fighting game esports history as of the time of writing.

Poongko joins Tyler “Diaphone” Kusich and Saul Leonardo “MenaRD” Mena II at Weibo Gaming. Diaphone, just like Poongko, is well-known for his prowess in multiple fighting games. MenaRD, on the other hand, is a world-class Street Fighter competitor.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves will be included in this year’s SNK Championship, and will feature a prize pool of $2.5 million. The first-place player will take home $1.5 million of that, which is the highest amount of money a fighting game player will receive to date.

Fighting game tournaments are notorious for their small prize pools compared to big esports games such as Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2. However, it seems that publishers and developers are trying to fix that by increasing the prize pools of their tournaments.

Capcom Cup has recently increased its prize pool to more than a million dollars. The recent Capcom Cup 11 tournament featured a prize pool of $1.2 million. The winner of that tournament, Kakeru, took home $1 million of that, leaving the rest—$200,000—to share.

While this announcement has piqued the interest of multiple fighting game players, SNK has not provided any information regarding which tournaments are going to be the qualifiers for the championship. However, they did announce that the SNK Championship will happen late 2025 in the U.S.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves was released on April 24, 2025, for the PC, PlayStation 4 & 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It was received favorably by reviewers, according to Metacritic.

Street Fighter 6 announced that it’s giving away two outfit colors, one for each of the Fatal Fury characters that were added to the game. Players can claim these free colors via the in-game news starting April 23.

The release of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is a momentous occasion not just for the Fatal Fury franchise but also for the fighting game community. This is the first Fatal Fury game in more than two decades, which is a huge deal for people in the fighting game community.

To celebrate this occasion, Street Fighter 6 is giving away free outfit colors for players who log into the game starting April 23. The colors apply to Terry Bogard’s and Mai Shiranui’s first outfits. Terry’s new color shows him wearing a blue vest and hat, while Mai has a more muted color outfit, sporting a black and white wardrobe.

For context as to why they were the ones to receive the colored outfits, Terry and Mai are originally from Fatal Fury. They were added to Street Fighter 6 as DLC Fighters in Season 2 as crossover characters.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is available on PlayStation 4 and 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S. It’s also one of the fighting games included in the Esports World Cup, which will have a prize pool of $1 million.

On April 3, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves announced they’re adding Salvatore Ganacci to its roster. Ganacci is the second real-life person to be added to the game, the first being Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ganacci is a Bosnian-Swedish DJ known for his dancing, comedic stage antics, and, most of all, his bizarre music videos. His hidden gear, a super move that every character can only use in certain situations, references one of his most popular songs, “Horse.”

Fatal Fury has a similar character called Duck King, who is a DJ and a professional dancer. Fans are wondering why the developers didn’t add Duck King and went with Ganacci instead. A Twitter post by SNK revealed that Duck King is actually good friends with Ganacci.

The game had a second beta test on March 26 that ended on March 31. Compared to the first one, the second beta test had the training mode enabled, which let players experiment with characters that they were interested in. The test had hiccups on its first day regarding matchmaking, but this was quickly fixed.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is the first entry in the Fatal Fury franchise in 26 years. It was first hinted that SNK was developing a new Fatal Fury game at EVO 2022. In 2024, the game was officially announced and slated for release on April 24, 2025, for the PlayStation 4 & 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.