The supposed origin behind this series was an issue of
Arcadia magazine in which there were articles covering both ''
The King of Fighters '98 and Street Fighter Alpha 3, both of which were released at around the same time. Readers had misread the cover, which said KOF vs. SF
, to mean that there was a fighting game that would pit characters from Street Fighter and The King of Fighters''. Because of this uproar, in 1999,
Capcom and
SNK supposedly signed a deal that would allow them to produce only two fighting games concerning both franchises.
Series hiatus In a 2021 interview with
Polygon, director
Hideaki Itsuno confirmed that at one point, there had been plans for a new, 3D installment in the series, but that it had been cancelled due to SNK's bankruptcy. The 3D assets created for
Capcom vs. SNK 3 were later repurposed for the cancelled
Capcom Fighting All-Stars; said project was set to include
The King of Fighters protagonist
Kyo Kusanagi as a guest character during its planned release after a deal was struck with the then-reformed SNK Playmore. There were interviews with SNK that it would be possible to renew their contract with Capcom to make new
SNK vs. Capcom games, but in another interview, both companies stated that they would not do any further collaboration with each other, claiming
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS would probably be the last crossover game between both companies. However, in an interview from January 2009,
Yoshinori Ono, the producer of
Street Fighter IV, expressed interest in a possible third game if fans demanded it. While no new
SNK vs. Capcom titles have been released since
Card Fighters DS, characters from both companies have appeared together in a handful of titles by other developers, including
Bandai Namco's
Tekken 7,
Nintendo's
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and
Cygames'
Granblue Fantasy.
Crossover appearances and re-releases SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium and ''
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters' Clash were re-released for the first time in 2021 and 2022 respectively on Windows and Nintendo Switch. In March 2022, Street Fighter'' characters were added to
Netmarble and
SNK's
The King of Fighters All Star. In August 2022, SNK and Capcom artists
Eisuke Ogura and
Shinkiro — the latter of whom is currently at Capcom after famously working at SNK — created special promotional posters featuring both companies' characters to celebrate the 2022
Evolution Championship Series tournament, the first live EVO since the
COVID-19 pandemic. In a subsequent interview, SNK producer
Yasuyuki Oda stated that "both parties" were interested in a potential revival of the series. Oda stated in a later interview that the EVO artwork opened the doors for further collaboration between the two companies. Multiple crossovers between SNK and Capcom were announced throughout 2024. At
Summer Game Fest in June, both
Terry Bogard and
Mai Shiranui were revealed as part of
Street Fighter 6s second season of downloadable content, making them the first third-party guest characters in a mainline
Street Fighter game. The next month, during
EVO 2024, a re-release of
SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos for Windows, Nintendo Switch and
PlayStation 4 was announced and released that day. The following August, it was announced that the Capcom-developed titles in the series would be included in
Capcom Fighting Collection 2, which was released in May 2025. During
Tokyo Game Show in September, it was announced that
Ken Masters and
Chun-Li would be part of the first season of DLC for
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, similarly making them the first third-party guest characters in a
Fatal Fury game. These announcements sparked speculation about a potential revival of the series, an interest acknowledged by Capcom producer Shuhei Matsumoto in an interview. In another interview, Oda stated that while there were certain hurdles in the way, they were aware of the fan demand and the odds of a revival were not impossible. == SNK-produced games ==