The 40-year-old footballer joins other guest characters like Chun-Li and Ken from the 'Street Fighter' series in the 'Fatal Fury: City Of The Wolves' roster. — Screenshot from the SNK website
Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo has joined the growing list of athletes who have been transformed into video game characters, following the likes of Lionel Messi in Call Of Duty, LeBron James in MultiVersus, and Malaysia's own Datuk Lee Chong Wei in Honor Of Kings.
Upcoming fighting game Fatal Fury: City Of The Wolves from Japanese developer SNK will include the 40-year-old footballer in its roster of fighters, joining other guest characters like Chun-Li and Ken from the Street Fighter series.
Interestingly, Ronaldo will not be voicing himself. Instead, he will be voiced by Juan Felipe Sierra in English and Masaaki Mizunaka in Japanese.
An announcement trailer on the official SNK YouTube channel gave a brief preview of Ronaldo's moveset, showing off combos and special moves inspired by football, including some that use a football as a projectile.
The 40-year-old footballer joins other guest characters like Chun-Li and Ken from the 'Street Fighter' series in the 'Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves' roster.. — Screenshot from the SNK website.
The athlete's inclusion has met a somewhat mixed reaction online, with a lukewarm response on Reddit as users question the decision to feature a real person over a traditional fighting game character.
"I never thought this would happen. Also, this is absolutely awful. Like, it’s really a bad look for your fighting game. I don’t want real dudes, I want cool characters," wrote user Thevanillafalcon.
Others, like Reddit user slyvam37, questioned whether the announcement was an early April Fools' prank, commenting, "AHAHHA! Good joke. This is an April's Fools' joke, right?"
Meanwhile, comments on the official SNK YouTube channel are largely on the positive end of the spectrum, expressing excitement and some confusion at Ronaldo's inclusion.
"This is without a doubt the weirdest fighting game crossover of all time," wrote user @coffeebird2857, while @IsmaelGonzalez-e7y commented "Ain’t no way we got Cristiano Ronaldo as a fighter this is crazy."
Fatal Fury: City Of The Wolves will launch on Steam, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on April 24.
