Discover the World of Competitive Killer Instinct
“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”
- Coretta Scott King, 2010
Thank you for reading KI Tracker’s 2024 State of the Game. This report is meant to be an overview of the prior year’s tournament data and comparing that data, where applicable, to the year prior to that. In this way, we hope that the community can glean some insights and gather some ideas on where the game and the community are going.
Personally, I believe that at this point in Killer Instinct’s life, its biggest strength lies with its full community of players, organizers and creators. I have been fortunate to witness so many ways Killer Instinct players worldwide have shown their strengths. Being engaging with veteran and new fighting game players picking up KI is one means. This community is very special amongst the greater FGC.
KI Tracker has been a labor of love. It started as a simple project to keep track of the 2021 Killer Instinct World Cup season several years ago. Now, with the help of my partner ShaolinPretzels and others, it’s grown into a full database that grows alongside the community. And through it, I’ve gotten opportunities to connect with so many people through Killer Instinct and fighting games. People from other countries with several different communities who speak many different languages. For someone like me that loves diversity, this is enriching in and of itself.
Growth is an important point that I want to pull from that. It’s probably the one thing I believe all fighting game communities want to see more of. More new players, more entrants for events and bigger audiences and purses for fighting games. I think it’s common to see new fighting games get these things with relative ease when a game is new and fresh. But growth then becomes more difficult as more time passes.
When the book closed on 2024, can we say that Killer Instinct saw growth from 2023 to 2024? That is a part of what this report is hopefully going to show and in some cases, leave for you to determine. Thank you all for continuing to play the game.
#PlayKI
SneerfulWater57
Source: KITracker.com
SneerfulWater57: "It’s plain to see that there’s been a drop off in events. In my own opinion, that can possibly be linked to two things. One is that over the last 7 or so years, fighting games have seen a lot of new entries for people to try so tournament organizers adjust accordingly. Major events have certainly seen game selection squeezed because of the balance between ‘fresh and new’ versus ‘traditional and classic.’ And two, there was drop off in the number of events due to the closure of Ultratech University, the loss of Monday Night Mix and Friday Night Setplay as well as offerings from Austrailia’s Hold Forward series."
Source: challonge.com, start.gg, paidiagaming.com, tonamel.com, twitch.tv, reporting from the community
SneerfulWater57: "It is clear that this number has dropped from the prior year, but there is a bit of a caveat to that. Ultrafine, the weekly tournament series in the US, has run a weekly Killer Instinct bracket for a long time. But in more recent times, they have added a rookies bracket and an alternating special bracket. Neither of these two events are listed in KI Tracker as they are not eligible events. The rookies bracket was eligible for a time until it was shifted to a swiss-style tournament. This also excluded events like the DMC 3v3 and 8v8, team tournaments that garnered a lot of interest but just do not fit the database’s profile. And it did not include things like the Reversal Tour where you played your opponent’s main character and vice versa. Just because these events don’t count does not mean that there was a drought in events. As stated, there has been a drop in events but only in the sense of traditional single or double elimination tournaments."
Source: start.gg, reporting from the community
SneerfulWater57: "This data point was the most surprising to me by far. One of the ways the FGC looks at a game’s health is by its offline presence. And Killer Instinct’s has gone up and I do not have a clear-cut idea as to why. I can tell you for sure that it is not from major events. Your EVO’s, Combo Breaker’s, CEO’s, UFA’s, etc. And I can tell you it’s not from October events where people like to run games that run in theme alongside Halloween. That tells me (and this is somewhat supported) that it may seeing more traction at a local type of level. There have been several events like that over 2024 around the world. I cannot tell if those players stuck with the game, but the fact that more and more exposure at a local may have happened seems to be a good sign. It will be interesting to see if this is maintained going through 2025 and if it influences events as the year goes along. Either through higher entrant numbers for tournaments or more interest in following the game as a spectator."
Source: KITracker.com
SneerfulWater57: "If you follow Killer Instinct, it will probably come as no surprise to you that in terms of offline events, Combo Breaker
lead both 2023 and 2024. In fact, the game has shown consistent growth over the last 3 years; 2022’s entrant numbers hit 115. It has not
relinquished it’s title as the home for offline Killer Instinct.
KI United 2023 was one of the years most hyped up online events and drew solid interest. But in a very cool and surprising turn of events,
2024’s biggest online event was a Japanese event called 新人類進化選定トーナメント, roughly translated to “New Human Evolution Selection Tournament.
Japan has seen interest in Killer Instinct increase in recent times and this is simply more proof."
Source: KITracker.com
SneerfulWater57: "Honestly, this was just a fun data point that we could determine but it might point to some interesting conclusions. There’s no surprise certain players are on this list such as Alex V, but others might be. And in the cases of a series where less wins in 2024 lead to being the top finisher over 2023? My thought on that is that the competition in 2024 became greater; some players have continued to get better over time and it’s showing through more results. However, this could also be because certain players are not entering as frequently which is true in some cases. For the tournament series that didn’t have multiple years to compare to, it’s no indictment of the series. Longevity to one specific game or one specific franchise for a series is hard, especially for older titles it seems. But not highlighting how good some of these players are in these series also felt like a disservice."
SneerfulWater57: "The stipulation that a player only needs to have played 15 tournament games in order to be eligible is why you may see so many names that are not on the tournament set win percentage list. 15 games is essentially 5 sets that went to 3-2 scores in a best-of-five format. So this shows a broader picture of players that could potentially be strong, but just have not played a lot of tournaments. I think it also shows a line between players that enforce their will and players that analyze you. In the top half of the list, recognizable players generally are types that play in ways that make you adapt. But there are similarly strong players in the lower half. This seems to state that one possible reason is these players are more the type that outplay the opponent over time so they lose a few more games."
SneerfulWater57: "Out of all the ways to ‘rate’ players, if you win a lot, that always puts you closer to the top no matter what. The stipulation that a player needs to play 12 sets minimum for eligibility for this list is a filter. It helps to keep one-off performances to a minimum. And for the purposes of this report where the only opinions you’ll read will be these little side notes, you are given just the results. ‘Win, and you’ll be recognized,’ is how the FGC looks at things at times. Given that, I am not shocked at the two players that tied for 1st, especially when I look at how they played. And I am pleased that no part of the list is dominated with US players. There is a degree of international presence to Killer Instinct and these players are seriously good."
Japanese:
2024年は日本でKiller Instinctが爆発的に広まり、沢山の新規プレイヤーが増えた年でした。 どぐらさん、まめスパイダーさん。
この場をお借りして御礼申し上げます。
本当にありがとうございます。
日本コミュニティ全体のモチベーションもレベルも凄まじく上がり、今では毎日の様に対戦が起こっております。
2025年もこの熱が冷める事なく燃え上がり続けれる様コミュニティ全体で頑張って参ります。
English:
2024 was the year that Killer Instinct exploded in Japan and many new players were added. Dogura-san and Mame-Spider-san.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you.
Thank you so much.
The motivation and level of the Japanese community as a whole has increased tremendously, and now we are seeing matches happening every day.
The entire community will continue to work hard so that this fever will not cool down in 2025.
French:
L'année 2024 a été une bonne année pour Killer Instinct en France. Malgré les jeux de combat actuels et plus récents, une petite communauté active autour du jeu a pu se former avec des nouveaux joueurs. Nous avons fait des tournois online, mais aussi des tournois offline, notamment un tournoi au major UFA 2024 ce qui est une très bonne chose.
Pour 2025, j'espère que la communauté va s'agrandir encore, et aussi voir le reste de la communauté européenne se réveiller, et qui sait, avoir un autre tournoi Killer Instinct à l'UFA 2025 avec encore plus de participants.
English:
The year 2024 was a good year for Killer Instinct in France. Despite the current and more recent fighting games, a small active community around the game was able to form with new players. We did online tournaments, but also offline tournaments, including a tournament at the major UFA 2024 which is a very good thing.
For 2025, I hope that the community will grow even bigger, and also hope to see the rest of the European community wake up, and who knows, have another Killer Instinct tournament at the UFA 2025 with more people who will sign up.
Killer Instinct in Australia still has a strong dedicated community that make sure the game makes an appearance at any majors that run in AU. while the game is still niche here, there is always plenty of people eager to get games in at any local. I hope that in 2025 we can get some of the older and stronger players to make appearances at events like BAM and OHN, and I look forward to seeing [all the] growth in each player… Personal shoutouts to my mate LightningFlare for endlessly finding more obscure nonsense with Mira and hitting me with it in a bracket.