After last week's "surprise trailer," revealing Mai Shiranui as the latest fighter for the King of Fighters 15, SNK returned to its promised motto to "Shatter All Expectations" for the next character reveal. While many fans were able to immediately guess last week's character, Mai, who was already a guarantee as she appeared in the announcement trailer, SNK made sure to keep fans on their toes this week.
Without a release date or discussion on what platform will the King of Fighters 15 release for, SNK has successfully relied on individual character trailers to generate hype, starting with a silhouette of the character expected to be revealed the following day. With this week's character reveal, many fans were left stumped, as it wasn't clear which character the silhouette belonged to. Many on Twitter assumed it was Botan, a character who has yet to make a playable appearance, yet has been important to the story since '03.
It was revealed that the returning character is Shermie, a character many had expected to return since Yashiro Nanakase's trailer three weeks ago. Sporting an entire design makeover from her previous inclusions, fans were surprised to see the buxom fashion designer so suddenly, as many had assumed she would be revealed much later. Like her teammates, Yashiro and Chris, her last official KOF appearance was The King of Fighters '02 Ultimate Match, 19 years ago.
Shermie's fighting style matches her flirtatious yet deadly personality and appearance quite well, being known as one of the few female grapplers in The King of Fighters series. Several of her moves involve taking her opponent to "Suplex City" with a sequence of German Suplexes, several variants of a Frankenstiener, and other wrestling-based moves. The end of the trailer sees her talking to someone on her cellphone, a homage to her appearances in older King of Fighters titles.
The King of Fighters 15 will release sometime in 2021.