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The Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves open beta has been cracked, allowing those with the game and some naughty software to bypass the game’s intended settings and access features and content otherwise locked away. This includes a training mode, which folks have been using to train before they’re meant to.
For context, the City of the Wolves (CoTW) beta kicked off last Friday up until today, and comes with an offline tutorial and online matchmaking. The assumed purpose of this test is to push the matchmaking and netcode to its limits, which players certainly have. The beta has shown cracks in such areas, leading SNK to consider another test in the near future. However, by most accounts, the beta has proven a nice way of fighting game fans to try out the game.
Enter the crackers, causing mischief. On PC, some players have discovered that by using Cheat Engine, they’ve been able to hop into the beta files and mess around. This has lead to a variety of discoveries not meant for mortal eyes quite yet. There are some serious spoilers out there, which we won’t share here to protect the innocents eager to learn more in due time, but it has also allowed for offline training modes to become accessible. It doesn’t sound like it was particularly hard to do, either.
This has resulted in the past few days of CoTW beta time being spent, by some, in the lab. Gameplay footage on Twitter confirms the discovery, as we can see basic frame data information on display, as well as a limited number of combo trails playable by those willing to be a bit cheeky and get up to no good.
Now, fighting game betas and crackers are no newfound issue. Street Fighter 6 had its own Cracker problem, as did Tekken 8 a little later. It looks like any time a fighting game dev puts out an early test like this, an arms race of sorts kicks up with people all over the world rolling up their sleeves and finding the Crack.
So why does this matter? Well, for the average player, it doesn’t! A day or two of extra training time won’t mean much when the game actually comes out. And, let’s face it, chances are if you’re reading this you (nor I) are taking rounds off FGC greats anyway. In fact, as long as the beta remains unplayable after today, it shouldn’t matter much to anyone at all.
Where this get’s really tricky is if crackers can find a way to access the training mode after the servers shut down. Then, there’s a serious problem. Again, not for me or you, but for the competitive scene. With CoTW coming out in April, this Super Crack would allow those with their eyes set on glory to train for roughly two months ahead of the game’s full release. This would provide an undeniable advantage for the first few months of the game’s life.
Consider the Esports World Cup, a Saudi Arabian tournament series with CoTW on its main stage roster of games. A government Sportswashing venture with some serious money on the line, those willing to compete in spite of ethical concerns could potentially win a lot of money. Now, this tournament happens shortly after CoTW’s launch, meaning those with two months of practice time would have a major advantage. Not that Saudi Arabia likely cares, as long as the players turn up and SNK’s game is on the stage (Saudi Arabia being the sole owner of SNK), then they win either way.
But for players it provides a serious dilemma. Being a Cracker is without a doubt a punishable offence at tournaments if evidence of its use can be established, but at the same time you’ve got to accept the reality that most top level players would be using it if one exists. Let’s hope that an offline-functional Beta Crack does not exist, or this is something all high level CoTW players will have to contend with.
What do you think, will naughty crackers out there figure out how to get an offline version working? Is it so bad to use it? Let us know below!
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