Salvatore Ganacci, a real life DJ, has been announced for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Taking the spot of a legacy SNK character, his announcement hasn’t gone down well among fighting game fans, confused as to why he has been added to the game over a selection of popular fighting game characters.
Yesterday, both a live action reveal trailer and a gameplay trailer for the character were released. Not only that, but SNK character Duck King – who was already a DJ – was used to tease Ganacci’s inclusion. City of the Wolves, a major leap forward in the Fatal Fury narrative, led some to believe a fictional apprentice would get a spot, leading to palpable disappointment when Ganacci came up.
Salvatore Ganacci, known for a selection of viral moments during live shows and songs like Take Me To America and Step-Grandma, is a common performer at Saudi Arabian music festivals, including promotional work for the upcoming Saudi government owned LIV Golf sportswashing venture this year. In addition, he is set to play a live show at the 1001 Festival in Riyadh on April 24, the same date as the City of the Wolves release date.
Fans were torn somewhat on the previous character reveal, footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, due to his popularity and the hope that his name could tempt non fighting game players into hopping into the genre. However, Salvatore Ganacci (who has far less cultural stock than Ronaldo) has gone down poorly online. Twitter, Bluesky, and Reddit are all up in arms about his inclusion.
It has also led to some fans digging up old statements from the SNK team. Namely, this Gamesindustry.biz article which highlighted a statement from an SNK representative, who claimed that the Saudi Arabian government’s 96% ownership in the company “doesn’t affect us in any way”. This has been called into question with the reveal of Ganacci, as the two real life guest characters both have business ties to Saudi Arabian owned events.
For those who aren’t sure as to why fighting game players would be so distraught that City of the Wolves would slap a DJ into the roster rather than a legacy character, you should know that the game is a sequel to a truly beloved game called Garou: Mark of the Wolves. It is held up as one of the best fighting games SNK ever made, and a narrative leap forward provides ample opportunity to bring back beloved characters from the history of one of fighting game’s longest-lived franchises.
On top of that there are criticisms of the Saudi Arabian involvement itself. Saudi Arabia bought SNK a few years ago as part of a wider push to diversify the country’s income and rectify negative international reputation. The country has been criticised heavily by human rights organisations like Amnesty International due to treatment of migrants, still using the death penalty, and more. Not only that, another human rights organisation Walk Free has listed Saudi Arabia as forth worldwide in slavery.
So for fans, this all feels gross in a very palpable way. Whether or not this will impact the game’s performance remains to be seen, but as of right now it certainly isn’t in genre diehards’ good books.
