After seeing Masanori Kuwasashi's work at
Irem, SNK game designer Takashi Nishiyama appointed him as the director of ''The King of Fighters '94''. Kuwasashi's first project at SNK was
Baseball Stars Professional, where he met Toyohisa Tanabe, who would go on to become the series' battle designer. According to interviews with veteran designers of
The King of Fighters series, the prototype version of the game was a
Double Dragon-style side-scrolling
beat 'em up titled
Survivor. It was intended to use only core characters from the
Art of Fighting and
Fatal Fury series, allowing players to control Robert Garcia and Terry Bogard during location testing. The idea was eventually abandoned. However, because SNK was attached to the concept of a crossover between the two series, the staff agreed to pivot the project into an
all-star fighting game. Classic characters from
Ikari Warriors and
Psycho Soldier were subsequently added to the roster. The concept of a three-man team was one of the few ideas retained from the side-scrolling prototype. The title "The King of Fighters" was reused from the subtitle of the first
Fatal Fury game,
Fatal Fury: King of Fighters. Series director Toyohisa Tanabe stated that the
Art of Fighting and
Fatal Fury characters were included specifically to appeal to adult players, while the newer
KOF characters were designed to appeal to younger audiences. Characters such as Benimaru Nikaido and Chang Koehan were added to bring an offbeat variety to the roster, which Tanabe had previously felt was too serious. The team aimed to compete with
Capcom's
Street Fighter series by introducing a team-based system as a direct response to the single-fighter format of Capcom's games. This led to the decision to include 24 playable characters, even though the roster was considered unusually large by fighting game standards at the time. SNK artist C.A.C. Yamasaki noted that while the lead programmer doubted the game's commercial viability, Yamasaki believed it would eventually become popular. Only ten people attended the first location test, but turnout grew significantly during subsequent tests. SNK also struggled to advertise the game effectively due to a limited marketing budget and reportedly low-quality promotional materials. Kuwasashi expressed early concerns about introducing a young lead character who might clash with the established veteran fighters, but ultimately believed it would benefit sales. After several discussions, the staff finalized the creation of the new hero, Kyo Kusanagi. They focused on designing him to be a more realistic and relatable character than those seen in other fighting games, emphasizing his youth, personal relationships, and stylish clothing. The designers wanted a "snazzy" lead who could hold his own against popular characters from
Fatal Fury and
Art of Fighting. Voice actor
Masahiro Nonaka drew inspiration from the late musician
Yutaka Ozaki when recording Kyo's dialogue, giving the character a distinct and appealing personality despite initial reservations. Fellow Team Japan member Benimaru Nikaido was designed to contrast visually with muscular fighting game staples like
Liu Kang from
Mortal Kombat and Sagat from
Street Fighter by sporting a slender, model-like appearance. The
boss character, Rugal Bernstein, was developed with the explicit goal of creating "the mightiest (most violent) and most evil boss character ever". Initially, the developers planned a "Fugitive Team" consisting of Chang, Choi, and an unknown criminal, but Kim Kaphwan was ultimately added to lead them instead. The English Team originally consisted of King from
Art of Fighting alongside
Billy Kane and Big Bear from the
Fatal Fury series. However, memory capacity issues regarding Big Bear, combined with pressure from the
Art of Fighting development staff to include Yuri Sakazaki, led to changes. Yuri ultimately replaced Billy Kane, and Mai Shiranui took Big Bear's spot, forming the English Team (which was renamed the Women Fighters Team in subsequent games). Initially, the developers planned to alter or remove moves from established characters to balance them against the new fighters. Ultimately, however, they chose to focus on balancing the gameplay without sacrificing any of the characters' signature techniques. Series creators have noted that the
Art of Fighting characters ended up being some of the strongest in the game. Nevertheless, characters like Terry and Andy Bogard received significant attention from the designers and were given entirely new moves. The development team also took a careful approach to designing the background stages; the Japanese stage, for example, was modeled after the developers' own office environment. Tanabe and his team balanced the large cast through extensive trial-and-error, though they intentionally designed Heidern to be one of the most overpowered characters. While the team enjoyed significant creative freedom with the Neo Geo hardware, maintaining that quality when porting the game to other platforms proved difficult. The PlayStation and Sega Saturn ports were commercially successful, but drew criticism for their bland stages and compromised character animations. Despite these technical hurdles, Kuwasashi and his staff were surprised by the game's overall popularity, which was cemented when ''KOF '94
won a major fighting game award from Gamest'' magazine. ==Release==