New Age Saga

The New Age Saga, known formerly as Verse Saga or Shun'ei Saga, is the fourth and currently ongoing mainline story arc in The King of Fighters series. It covers the events found in The King of Fighters XIV and The King of Fighters XV, as well as SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy (a canonical spin-off game).

Verse
After Ash Crimson sacrificed himself to erase his ancestor Saiki from existence during the the thirteenth tournament, an entity called Verse emerged. It consisted of fallen souls from The King of Fighters series and other SNK series. Sensing a profound malevolence emanating from a spacetime rift, Nakoruru, a young priestess from Feudal Japan in the late 18th century, embarked on a journey to the present day. She joined forces with Mui Mui, a Dragon clan member, and Love Heart, a pirate and captain of the Peace Air Pirates, to participate in the 14th KOF tournament.

The "First" Champion


Several years after the events of the thirteenth tournament, a confident billionaire named Antonov buys the rights to The King of Fighters tournament, over the strong objections of the board members of his company, the Antonov Corporation. Proclaiming himself as the “first champion”, he eagerly hosts a new tournament and sends out invites across the world, challenging the teams to take his title.

Follow Me
Once again, all of the teams fought with all their strength, culminating with the Japan Team reaching the finals, which was a final confrontation with the "first" champion, Antonov. Team Japan easily beats him, making them winners of The King of Fighters XIV, the first time since their last victory in the '97 tournament.



However, mere moments after beating Antonov, a mysterious entity appears, destroying the stadium and causing the death of many people.

This Verse's manifestation has already caused time anomalies. A fragment of Verse is inside, and its presence compelled Nakoruru (who refers to him as Wei Kamui) to traverse through spacetime to defeat it. Shun'ei defeated Verse, but upon the defeat, it exploded and released ominous mist across the world. With Verse's defeat, The King of Fighters tournament ends.

Burning On
36 hours after the tournament's conclusion, Heidern receives information from Maxima about the creature that appeared during the finals of the tournament. The Ikari squad leader dubs the entity as Verse, due to it only yelling "Veeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrse" when it spoke. Heidern then confirms that there are several bodies that were resurrected and has already commenced a 24-hour surveillance. After the meeting, he tells Leona that her father Gaidel is likely among the resurrected souls but could not be confirmed. Leona responds that she's not concerned about it.

Several characters were revived after the tournament:

SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy

 * Note: Due to this game's events being treated as a self-contained dream sequence they do not affect the future mainline KOF titles directly, with only a few minor tidbits like Shermie's presence being followed up upon.

Several months prior to the events of the fifteenth torunament, Kukri's obsession for women caused him to create a pocket dimension where women fighters must survive in his universe and join forces and slug it out with other women.

Kukri transports and kidnaps most of SNK female fighters, including few of them who aren't present in the previous tournament (such as Jeanne D'Arc and the recently revived Shermie) to this pocket dimension, and they suddenly fall unconscious. Upon waking, they find themselves in a strange mansion, along some male fighters who have been changed into women. Kukri's main objective is to transform the female fighters into sand sculptures. For this, he has the help of an evil statue whose energy comes from the battles between the fighters, in addition to the fear and despair of each of them. The fighters attempt to battle their way out, but are confronted by the mastermind, Kukri, who reveals he has trapped them in his castle in a pocket dimension and they must defeat him to return home. The heroines all defeat Kukri, which causes the pocket dimension to collapse all together, sending the heroines back to reality (indicated as the events being revealed to be a bad dream), while Kukri is left in an unknown status.

Prologue
Only the world's toughest fighters can duke it out in the largest martial arts tournament in the world. Though a mysterious being called Verse destroyed the KOF arena, its threat was quelled thanks to the brave efforts of the winning challengers.

Time has passed since the closing of that tumultuous tournament, and the next KOF begins, backed by a new sponsor. Meanwhile, Chizuru Kagura senses something interfering with the seal of Orochi, otherwise known as Gaia's Will.

She teams up with Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami to join the KOF and investigate.

Amidst these myriad motives, fighters resurrected after Verse's defeat also join the fray. Once again, a storm is on the horizon...

Shatter All Exceptations
. Following Antonov's early retirement, the new tournament commissioner Anastasia sends out invitations to fighters to join the tournament; the mayhem caused by Verse's powers resurrects various long-thought deceased fighters from past tournaments as well. Chizuru Kagura gathers Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami in order to look after the seal of the snake demon Orochi. Shun'ei, a teenager with mysterious powers resembling Verse's, enters the tournament again alongside Meitenkun and Benimaru Nikaido to better understand his powers. During the tournament, they encounter a rival team led by a girl with similar powers to his own, Isla. Isla is being mentored by a woman named Dolores who wishes for her and Shun'ei to stop the appearance of more creatures like Verse, believing Ash Crimson's timetravelling in a previous tournament to have caused their appearance. However, a new creature labeled as Re Verse appears as the tournament progresses and targets the fighters, pulling them into another world. Following Re Verse's defeat, the mysterious goddess Otoma=Raga appears and attacks the teams. Upon Otoma=Raga's defeat, the fighters escape back to their world and are crowned the new King of Fighters champions, whereas Isla finally warms up with Shun'ei at the same time their respective Amps are fully under control, such as Shun'ei can finally take off his headphones safely. As confirmed by Kukri earlier, defeating Otoma=Raga and Re Verse does not erase the revived fighters’ existences once they survive the two entities’ rampages.

Teams (Mainline & DLC)
The team formations present in the game are as the follows:

Solo Characters (All DLC)
The solo characters present in the game are as the follows:

Debutant Characters

 * Characters who made their canonical debut in The King of Fighters series, ordered by their first appearance in the series.

Returning Characters
Characters who are returning from previous installments in The King of Fighters series, ordered by their first appearance in the series.

NPC Characters
Non-playable characters who appear during the saga's lore.

Characters & Teams' Participations

 * Teams and/or participations in which the characters who participate in the saga are inserted.


 * Note: As there the system of the game is 2-vs-2 (Tag-Battle System), all participations in SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy are solo.

Mainline Games

 * Participation of the debutant or returning characters in mainline games of the saga, either they canonical or not.


 * Note 1: The order of the table are based on the appearances on the first mainline game of the saga.


 * Note 2: About the colors in the table, they follow the logic below:


 * Yellow: for table titles.
 * Law Green & Red: for the characters' participation in the saga.
 * Forest Green & Fire Brick: the first color indicates the characters who participated in all games of the saga, and the second indicates the characters who were absent from, at least, one game in the saga.

Spin-Off Participations

 * Participation of the debutant or returning characters in spin-off games with direct relation to the saga, either they canonical or not.


 * Note: About the colors in the table, they follow the logic below:


 * Yellow: for table titles.
 * Law Green & Red: for the characters' participation in the game.
 * Forest Green & Fire Brick: the first color indicates the characters who participated in the game, and the second indicates the characters who were absent in the game.

Characters' Number Participations in the Mainline Series
''Number of participations in each game of the saga. The participations can be by source game of the series, source series or source saga/story arc. This list considers only the characters inserted in the mainline series.''

Characters' Number Participations in the Spin-off Games
''Number of participations in the spin-off games. The participations can be by source game of the series, source series or source saga/story arc.''