The King of Fighters is one of the classic arcade-style fighting game franchises. While it’s not quite as well known to the general public as some of its fighting game cousins like Street Fighter and Mortal Combat, it continues to be among the most successful long-running series in the genre.
Now, Fans are gearing up for the launch of The King of Fighters 15 on PC and current and next-gen consoles. The game goes live on February 17, with players able to preload the game on February 15. Players may need to make sure there’s room on their console’s storage device, however, as The King of Fighters 15 comes with a relatively hefty file size.
According to the generally reliable PlayStation Game Size, the PS5 version of The King of Fighters 15 reportedly has a download size of 68.048 GB. However, PS Game Size notes that the 68 GB number does not include the game’s day one patch. It’s also possible that the download contains temporary files that make it appear larger than it is. Additionally, it’s possible that the file size may be different on other platforms. However, it is a good indicator of what fans should expect on the Xbox Series X and Series S.
Now, 68 GB isn’t an unprecedented file size. Destiny 2 was a massive 105 GB download before Bungie fixed it with a patch, while Marvel’s Avengers is a smaller but still significant 75 GB. However, those are large games, not one vs. one fighting games. A more relevant comparison might be 2019’s Mortal Combat 11, which only weighed in at a little over 43 GB. Meanwhile, last year’s PS5 fighting game Guilty Gear: Strive is a comparatively tiny 16 GB.
Granted, it’s not like that data is just useless padding. The King of Fighters 15 launches with a comparatively massive roster of 40 playable characters. The voice lines, animations, and various graphical effects combined no doubt take up a significant amount of space. By comparison, Mortal Combat 11 launched with only 25 characters, with DLC bringing the number up to 37. The game also features around 300 songs, which could be a lot of data depending on the file format.
On the other hand, it’s also possible that The King of Fighters 15 is just poorly optimized. Even with the above considerations, it is hard to believe that a fighting game is only about 4 GB smaller than Grand Theft Auto 5. The King of Fighters 15 looks great but isn’t exactly going for photorealism, so advancement in graphics technology doesn’t seem to account for the game’s massive size. Hopefully, the game turns out to be worth such a staggering amount of data.
King of Fighters 15 launches February 17th, 2022, for PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.