King of Fighters 15 is honestly a very good fighting game. It might even be my personal favorite in the series, but there’s just one big problem – playing against other people can seem almost impossible.
SNK has released several updates to KOF5 in the 15 months since the game’s launch in February, yet its online matchmaking is still broken for many people around the world – and the playerbase’s patience has pushed the limit. has been
We’ve seen too many reports and complaints to count about players on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC waiting upwards of 30 minutes to find a match (if at all), and it’s not because there’s any not online.
Even when a match can be started, it is common for the connection to be much worse/farther than the player’s preferred settings.
I personally haven’t had many problems trying to fight people in KOF15, but hopping online tonight took over 7 minutes to find a match after several failed searches – and it was completely impossible.
I really hope there is some progress in SNK regarding matchmaking issues for KOF XV. The game is excellent but to see new players getting frustrated because they can’t find players with similar skills is understandable and heartbreaking
— Dr. Frickenfurt (@BoomCube) 22 July 2022
It remains a big black eye on an otherwise solid game, and the fact that matchmaking is still happening in this state is almost unbelievable.
From all the digging we’ve done, no one in the community has been able to figure out what’s going wrong, but someone has created iskofxvsmatchmakingstillbroken.com to compile all the information we know so far.
It also means that there is no known fix or real solution to the problem, which has caused a lot of frustration among the playerbase and is potentially causing people to leave KOF15 until it is fixed.
damn. I love playing KOF but matchmaking makes it impossible to play that game. Played for one and a half hours and got 3 sets.
— Dominic (@UltraNick24) 21 July 2022
While we can’t see console player numbers, the Steam chart shows an average of 530 people online at any given time on PC last month — where its all-time peak was more than 8,200.
It’s not really a good look for a game less than 6 months old, especially considering the over 28% drop in the average population on PC in June.
Meanwhile, similarly sized games that are over 5 years old like Tekken 7 and Street Fighter 5 are easily beating KOF 15 in player count.
The King of Fighters 15 barely even made the top 10 in our recent ranking of fighting game player counts on Steam.
SNK hasn’t been completely silent on the problem as they acknowledged the matchmaking issues and provided players with a survey to give developers more information to help them find solutions.
However, that was about 2 months ago, and there is still no word on when to expect the new update.
If a fix isn’t implemented soon, I’m starting to worry that KOF15 might end up with the same fate as Samurai Shodown – a great game that most people moved on too quickly because they couldn’t play online.
Maintaining a healthy community in today’s ecosystem requires a fighting game basically at least a good matchmaking experience, especially with the amount of strong competition around and more big drops on the horizon like Street Fighter 6. with.
I hope SNK announces a world tour schedule for Koff XV. And this is us taking a journey through the valley of the shadow of death where we hit the matchmaking button to discover the game and finally connect with other players who were believed to be lost and are now found 🙏🏿🙏 🙏
— Panda Kizzie (@Kizzie_Kay) 21 July 2022
It doesn’t really matter how many DLC characters, costumes, and balance adjustments SNK makes if players can’t really play against other people consistently.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much the community can do except wait because SNK is already too aware of the problems.
Evo is set to launch a new DLC team in Team Awakened Orochi sometime after 2022, hopefully with a solution ready for their arrival.
I still certainly have high hopes that KOF15 can bounce back and be a strong contender for years to come, but the game cannot continue like this indefinitely.
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