SNK Playmore to Release Samurai Spirits Zero

SNK Playmore to Release Samurai Spirits Zero

SNK Playmore opened the official homepage last week for Samurai Spirits Zero, a new arcade game that marks the revival of one of the company's most revered fighting series (called Samurai Shodown in America).

Although information is still scant on Zero, SNK Playmore confirms that the game will be in 2D, likely meaning it will run on the Neo-Geo hardware that the company has supported for over a decade in the arcades. Development is being handled by Yuki Enterprise, a fledgling Japanese studio whose past releases consist mostly of Japanese board games for the PlayStation and other consoles.

Originally released to arcades in 1993, Samurai Shodown was one of the first one-on-one fighters to feature actual weapons instead of hand-to-hand combat. An immediate hit in the arcades, it was one of the many Neo-Geo fighters that helped build SNK's name as a hardcore-gamer outfit in the mid-1990s. This announcement marks the first new Samurai Shodown game in nearly seven years—the last title, Samurai Shodown 64, was a 3D game and is widely considered a disappointment by series fans.

SOURCE: Game Pro World.