The King of Fighters Neowave

The King of Fighters Neowave, often shortened as KOF Neowave, or KOF NW, is a 2004 2D fighting game produced by SNK Playmore. It is their first coin-operated arcade game for Sammy's Atomiswave hardware, following the release of The King of Fighters 2003 being the final Neo Geo arcade installment from the franchise. Home ports of the game were released for PlayStation 2 and Xbox shortly after its release in the arcade. The game is loosely based the previous installment The King of Fighters 2002 with some changes in the roster and stages, most notably featuring the boss Geese Howard from Art of Fighting 2, replacing Rugal Bernstein.

The game features no narrative. The character artwork was done by Tomokazu Nakano, famous for doing art for Power Instinct. The game uses the common fighting system of the series involving the creation of teams each composed of three characters who compete against each other to decide which team should move on. The two console ports also added multiple hidden characters not present in the arcade. Compared to usual The King of Fighters games, Neowave received a lukewarm critical reception with several writers criticizing its lack of innovative features as well being called inferior to previous installments.