Fans of the Killer Instinct franchise got a small spark of hope in their pursuit of a new game.
In an appearance on the Dropped Frames podcast, Xbox head Phil Spencer told hosts itmeJP, Cohh Carnage, and Ezekiel_III that there have been some conversations behind the scenes about KI.
The answer was brought about by viewers and fans of fighting game community (FGC) figurehead and streamer Maximilian Dood joining JP’s chat and asking about KI and spamming #BringBackKI, a popular tag used when discussing the franchise, though Max later denied sending people over.
This prompted JP to ask if Spencer would just say KI, but the Microsoft executive gave fans a lot more to work with. And after laughing and joking about Max and being scared of mentioning the franchise on stream, Spencer spoke about KI and the future.
“There are so many good games in our (Xbox’s) catalog that we would love to visit,” Spencer said. “The response when we redid KI at the launch of the Xbox One was fantastic. Not everyone inside the Xbox org saw what that game could become.”
Spencer went on to say that he has discussions internally about KI and what will happen with the franchise next. The Xbox One release of Killer Instinct in 2013 is still the most recent game developed in the series, worked on by the team at Iron Galaxy. But there is still hope for something new, even if it might not be coming in the near future.
“It is in our hearts and in our minds that we want to continue to do something with KI,” Spencer said. “It is about finding the right team and the right opportunity, but it is not due to any lack of desire on our part that we aren’t doing more with KI. We love the franchise and the community response.”
You can listen to the full interview with Spencer on JP’s Twitch channel or the Dropped Frames podcast.
