It looks like SNK has a venerable hit on its hands with their upcoming Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. According to those in the fighting game community who have tried out the beta tests, the gameplay is already pretty well-tuned and it looks phenomenal in action. SNK is still tweaking the game, which is good as City of the Wolves is scheduled to be released during late April. In fact, the complete roster hasn’t been revealed yet.

SNK did release the trailer for the next roster member for City of the Wolves recently and it’s a first for the Fatal Fury series and, well, fighting games in general. That’s because the latest member of the City of the Wolves roster is none other than real life professional futbol player, Cristiano Ronaldo!

No, I’m not joking. SNK made Cristiano Ronaldo a playable character in the latest Fatal Fury game! He isn’t some mod of someone in the game. He’s not even some kind of DLC character This is an official creation of SNK and he’s part of the starting roster of City of the Wolves!

This announcement has the fighting game community reeling as this kind of thing has never happened before! Sure, there have been guest characters in fighting games before but this is one of those weird instances when a real person has joined a fighting game roster. This isn’t some pastiche like Fei Long or Marshall Law mimicking Bruce Lee. This isn’t some fictional rendition of a real person like Rasputin from World Heroes. This isn’t a part of some quick cash-in fighting game like Jackie Chan‘s Fists of Fire. No, SNK actually got the license to use Cristiano Ronaldo’s likeness to be in the next Fatal Fury game!

In retrospect, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, SNK did already announced that CR7 would be connected with the game. But, at that time, most people, and justifiably so, thought he was going to be something like a spokesperson for City of the Wolves. Sure, they joked about the idea of him being a part of the roster. But little did they know SNK was serious about it!

The weird thing is, as stupid and ridiculous this may come across, I actually like this! And I’m not even a fulbol fan!

Oh, I will say it’s still incredibly stupid how they added Cristiano Ronaldo to City of the Wolves. I mean, it’s a fighting game! The only other sports figure I can think of who ever made it into a fighting game is Shaquille O’Neil with Shaq-Fu. And gamers, not necessarily fighting game fans, know how bad that turned out, do we? There’s also the weird implication that the Fatal Fury universe is not a piece of fiction and all the martial arts attacks characters like Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui is possible as long as you train hard enough! It kind of breaks my immersion of the game in a sense.

One thing that I also found pretty hilarious is how Fatal Fury’s Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t look a thing like Cristiano Ronaldo! While I may be familiar with CR7, I didn’t really know what he looked like until I saw the announcement trailer SNK put together. So, when they transition over to his in-game character model almost immediately, you can plainly see it doesn’t look a thing like him! I mean, what’s with that smooth babyface? Adding to the hilarity is how SNK seemingly put all of the polygons to his legs… which explains why they put a shirt on him. It’s to cover up his lack of muscular details!

I also found it weird how Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t being voiced by Cristiano Ronaldo! You have the license to the real person yet you didn’t hire him to do the voiceover work? That’s so dumb and it reminds me of those old cartoons based on kid-friendly movies like The Karate Kid animated series where they didn’t bother to get the actors from the live-action movie to do the lines! Then again, having a professional voice actor might have been a blessing as, based on the official announcement trailer, I don’t think CR7 is a good actor. Yeah, better get a voice actor to do the lines, lest we remember what happens when you get someone like Megan Fox to do voice work like she did for Mortal Kombat 1! Look, I have a huge crush on Megan Fox… but even I will say her job here wasn’t exactly stellar.

I do get the impetus of adding him to City of the Wolves. He is known the world over. Like I just said, I don’t watch futbol but even I know who CR7 is. He’s just one of those players who have crossed over into the mainstream zeitgeist like Michael Jordan or Hulk Hogan. You may not know anything about basketball or pro wrestling but you definitely know who those guys are!

As such, the reveal that he’s a playable character in City of the Wolves is catching a lot of attention and, in effect, drawing a lot of eyes to the game. I’m not sure how much crossover there is between fulbol fans and the fighting game community. But if there wasn’t much, there is now! So, with this announcement drawing a lot of attention, I can see some CR7 fans looking at it. They might actually think of getting City of the Wolves when it comes out next month, despite not ever playing a fighting game before. Good luck learning all of his crazy futbol special attacks, newbies!

Speaking of his special attacks, I do find it hilarious (in a good way) how SNK tried to re-imagine his moves on the pitch to work as fighting game attacks. Sure, it was expected that he would use the ball as a projectile. That’s not really surprising. What is surprising is that they incorporated his signature “Siuuu!” pose into the the game. It’s not just a win pose after he defeats his opponent. No, he does the “Siuuu!” pose in order to trigger and explosion from the ball after he kicks it to his opponent! That’s both kind of cringe and perfect all at the same time!

There are even some technical aspects to the character that does suggest he’s not just going to be a silly guest character just to pander to his fans. Maybe it’s just me but I did see how he can charge in after hitting his opponent with the ball, creating a link combo. I do wish we did see more of his normal attacks, however. It’s kind of hard to gauge how good he’s going to be if we don’t see if his button attacks have decent range, cancellability and whatnot.

This doesn’t exactly answer the question if CR7 will be a viable character in City of the Wolves. What I will say is I’m not against having a real-life futbol star joining a fighting game. Sure, it’s one of the weirdest things ever and may even make some hardcore members of the fighting game community condemn SNK for trying to pander to the more casual audience.

As someone who does love fighting games, I’m in favor of his entry into the world of Fatal Fury if he’s actually fun to play. If SNK can make Cristiano Ronaldo a good fighting game character, then why not? However, I don’t want him to be top tier, though. Even if his diehard fans moan and complain that “CR7 should be able to wipe the floor against any character because he’s CR7,” they shouldn’t do that. Make him viable. Make that silly futbol player a viable character. That’s all I ask.

What’s your take on real-world futbol superstar Cristiano Ronaldo joining the starting roster of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves? Let me know in the comments section below!