Last night, SNK revealed that Shermie, a fan favorite character who hasn’t appeared in a mainline installment since King of Fighters 2002, is returning to the series in King of Fighters XV. Sadly, they also took something away: a “PORN” sign that adorned one of the upcoming fighting game’s stages as recently as two weeks ago.
The neon advertisement, located in what appears to be an abandoned, King of Fighters-themed amusement park, said “POPCORN” before the ravages of time seemingly busted some of the letters, leaving behind just “PORN.”
But sometime between the stage’s appearance in a March 31 trailer and yesterday’s Shermie reveal, SNK must have caught on. As pointed out by Twitter user RaitoADV, the sign’s surviving letters now read “POPN,” a nonsense word that’s nonetheless more benign than the original.
Who knows, this could all be a coincidence and a background artist at SNK just really loves the Konami rhythm game series Pop’n Music, or is perhaps a fan of the Pillsbury Doughboy, whose government name is Pop’n Fresh.
In any case, we bid a fond farewell to the PORN sign. We barely knew you but your short life brought us so much joy.