To celebrate the launch of KOF98ol, the production team decided to take a tour to visit SNK Osaka Headquarters. They had a chance to sit down and briefly chat with the KOF XIV director Yasuyuki Oda. Head over to Orochinagi for a translation of the full interview. Though Oda did not reveal much in this brief interview, it is the first time we learned that Oda will be the director of KOF XIV.

According to the Moby games database, Oda spent his career at Dimps working on Capcom’s SF4 series. He started out as a battle designer for SF4, then as a game designer for SSF4 and SFxT, and also served as director of SF4:AE. Before joining Dimps, Oda was a former SNK employee from 1993-2000. He returned to SNK Playmore in February, 2014 according to Kof Koucha.

Given his long history with the SF4 series, there will be a good chance that we might see some of the SF4 influences in KOF XIV. Let us know in the comments what you think of this.