While Kula and Elisabeth stand as frontrunners due to their ties and history with K' and Ash Crimson respectively, there are other characters who have often been seen with these two but have less going for them now that the remaining roster slots are beginning to thin. Now that Ash is back and the conflict with Those From The Past (the villains of his story arc) is presumably wrapped up, Ash and Elisabeth will hopefully be back on better terms and be working together once more through the bonds that forged in their childhood. She was featured in the story scenes from King of Fighters 14 as the one person who actually remembered Ash's existence after he was erased from reality, and was there when he reincarnated on earth, mysteriously together with Kukri of all characters.īecause of this, Kukri's reveal further galvanizes my belief that Elisabeth is coming back, with my assumption being that Ash's new team will consist of himself, Elisabeth and Kukri, though what the latter's motives are remains unknown. With Ash's return for King of Fighters 15, Elisabeth's return seems ever more likely.
While she isn't as much of a veteran to the series as Kula is (Elisabeth first debuted The King of Fighters XI), she has been a central part of the Ash Crimson Saga and is in a lot of ways the character who has kept Ash grounded. The other character who stands out as an obvious choice, albeit not quite to the same extent as Kula does, is Elisabeth Blanctorche.
In short, Kula seems like an absolute guarantee since K' has his own team, but even if she's out of it, her popularity and relative mainstay status still propel her to being one of the most likely inclusions for the launch roster out of the characters we're currently unaware of. She is definitely a character whose popularity has grown more and more in recent years, though, with her being one of only a handful of King of Fighters characters to guest star in a different fighting game title, when she joined her fellow heroine Mai Shiranui in Dead or Alive 6's roster.Įquipped with icy powers and a childlike attitude, Kula and K' have formed a significant bond throughout the King of Fighters storyline and even though she hasn't always been on his team, she's been on it for her last few appearances and feels fairly locked in to it at this point.Įven if SNK plan to shake it up, which they have said and shown is something they're willing to do in King of Fighters 15, there's still a place for Kula in the roster since we have a team currently unrevealed which could easily be a "Remnants of NESTS" team led by Kula and featuring two other as-of-yet unrevealed fighters, Angel and Sylvie Paula Paula, who share similar backstories with Kula. Since her first appearance, Kula has only missed two titles - The King of Fighters 2003 and the roster-challenged King of Fighters XII. I am of course talking about Kula Diamond, largely a mainstay since her debut back in King of Fighters 2000 and a fixture on the team of K' in most games. The first and most obvious character that everyone's been waiting for is none other than one of the King of Fighters franchise's postergirls. With that in mind, let's have a look at some picks that seem likely or unlikely based on the current team situation. These characters each fit in somewhere in these unassigned slots, currently leaving us with 6 characters that haven't been revealed for the game's starting roster. There are also a few charactrers revealed who simply haven't been placed into teams yet - another mysterious female newcomer who was shown in the game's overview trailer as well as Heidern and Kukri. These 3 teams have 2 spots each, for a total of 6 spots, which are currently unknown.įinally, there is also one team which is currently completely unknown, with all 3 members entirely blacked out.
9 of these teams have been revealed in full, while 3 of the remaining teams have at least one member shown - K', Ash Crimson and a female newcomer who appears to be a rival to Shun'ei, respectively. To start off with some simple math, the King of Fighters 15's launch roster will be made up of 39 characters divided into 13 separate teams for story purposes.