KOF Arena‘s official release date has been set to Nov 14 on PC and mobile. Based on the popular King of Fighters franchise, the game hasn’t garnered much attention, let alone hype, possibly due to its somewhat confusing NFT system, and pay to win products.

Confusing F2P-NFT System

KOF Arena‘s whitepaper refers to no less than 6 separate currencies, 4 of which are in-game currencies. There are also different NFT products offered for sale such as Fighter Card NFTs that allow their owners to earn dividends even without playing, Controller NFTs that allow players to earn additional currency as they play, products that allow for higher mining efficiency, and products that change the stats of fighters as well, the latter of which definitely carry P2W attributes.
If you want to learn more about the game’s NFT system and tokenomics, check the official whitepaper: https://kof-arena.gitbook.io/the-king-of-fighters-arena/.

Worth Playing as F2P?

The whitepaper states that “Challengers can receive rewards by playing The King of Fighters ARENA on the blockchain and exchange the rewards for tokens“, but it remains unclear whether this applies to all players or exclusively to NFT owners. Despite the confusion, the game still looks promising and may be fun to play even for F2P players. There will be 2 PVP modes, 1v1 and 3v3. The latter may be more F2P-friendly, and is new compared to the previous, still running KOF title by Netmarble, namely The King of Fighters All Star.