WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR

Game play is designed to be less combo heavy compared to XIII to accomodate the wide range of players who play online at home. The producer said that Garou will be the main inspiration for how combos work.

Cancel frame windows will be larger and the game will freeze a frame when you first-hit allowing for easier confirms. Producer says that it is a "necessity" in the current world with HDTV lag. The old KOF one-frame window for cancel require a lot of "gamble" since the HDTV lag makes so that you need to input the following command without confirmation.

You can just defend/instant block. Though the specifics of how it works is still being tweaked. One dev had said it gives health back, but the producer said that it’s not really a discernable difference other than blocking. He mentioned it gives more meter and reduces guard bar used, but that’s not really noticeable in the current build.

The game speed will be toned down for levels closer to what Garou, KOF 2002 UM and KOF 98 UM had. Meaning that they are slower than XIII.

The final roster has been revelealed. That means that Yamazaki, Blue Mary, Vanessa and Kasumi Todo will not be included, even if they are some of the most popular characters in the game. Producer said that some of those characters were too hard to balance or would be too similar to other current existing characters. That seems to be the case with Nelson, that moves and fights almost like Vanessa did in 2002.

KOF XIV is developed in partnership with Sony. As a result, it is getting lots of exposure from Sony including main stage announcements, booth space at PSX. Sony is also hosting the official trailer on their YouTube channel, as well as hyping up the game on their twitter feed. They put a plaque in front of the demo stations urging fans to tweet about the game using the hashtag #KOFXIV. Because of that, KOF XIV is a “PS4 console exclusive” set to release sometime in 2016. However, the producer said that a PC version is "inevitable" and "close", citing that most of the fans in China and South America play the games on PC instead of a console and those are SNK largest markets outside Japan.

Drive gauge is gone. Super Cancels will work like they did in 98UMFE. Meaning that you can no longer cancel any special into special by spending the cancel meter, but you can cancel special, into super, into Neo Max. Some specials are part of part of links however. And will work like Super Cancels in XIII and will cost regular meter.

New system includes Max mode, which grants access to EX moves. Ex moves can only be performed in Max mode. The length of the timer in Max mode changes depending on your character position. Short for the pointer and long for the anchor.

Max mode activation freezes the screen, so it’s possible to activate and react to your opponent’s action accordingly.

You can cancel a normal move with Max mode activation and continue the combo from there, but Max mode timer will be at 50% if activated this way.

Climax supers (the old Neo Max) require three bars of power gauge to perform instead of two.

Normal grabs with HP and HK are different versions, similar to old KOF games.

You gain one bar of super meter when you lose a character.

The team behind the game is the same behind Garou. As such, it's been implied that a sequel to Garou will be in the works if KOF XIV succeeds.