SNKP is probably recycling engine and 3D models from KOFXIII. That XIII-XIV side by side comparison video shows it so clearly, how people can be afraid about KOFXIV not being top notch from a gameplay standpoint is well beyond me. I'm even getting less doubtful about KOFXIV having more than 30 chars: if almost everything's being reused from KOFXIII, a whole lot of character models are basically 99% complete, so making a fair number of new chars shouldn't be impossible. Even then, I think 48+2 are too many, even with such simple graphics. Still, I'd like to be proven wrong by SNKP themselves :D
[spoiler=roster speculation]-everybody's gonna come back minus Ash, Elisabeth, Mature, Saiki and Vice (1)
-Hero Team, new-Duo-Shen (2)
-Kyo and Iori will be solo because it's kind of a staple in the beginning of every saga
-Shingo in place of Kyo in Japan Team
-Chang and Choi in place of Hwa and Raiden in Kim's team
-XI Agents Team coming back
-Outlaw Team, Oswald-Yamazaki-Eiji or Oswald-new-new
-Raiden-Hwa-Billy (3)
-midboss Xiao Lon (4)
-boss Ron
If I counted them correctly, that's a 39 chars roster (40 if you count Ron) and only 10 characters (11 counting Ron) made from scratch. Shingo is nothing more than a headswap of schoolboy Kyo with rekka-ish moves, piece of cake :D
(1) Ash and Saiki are erased from existence and won't be in story driven KOF games anymore, unless SNKP comes up with some weird time paradox xD Betty needs to stay away from fighting for a little cause she's mourning over Ash, and I don't think Mature and Vice feel like bothering with Iori again after he stubbornly resolved to take his cursed powers back xD
(2) the new character here is obviously the new protagonist, he teams up with Duo and Shen for both story reasons -they all want to crush the Hizoku and Dragon Pills traffickers, though for Shen it's just a matter of revenge/defeating Oswald completely depending on who won that offscreen battle- and as a nod to the NESTS saga Hero Team setup, where K' and Maxima were put together with chars from the previous saga
(3) I think Billy needs to get his goofy side back, nothing better than teaming up with these two wannabe-evil dumbasses xD Do you remember how he whined in FF1 when you made his staff fly away?
(4) sort of a rival to Duo, determined meet his brother again, to put an end to the war between her brother and her father and to show Duo she's not so soft hearted as he says
[/spoiler]