The King of Fighters '98 (KOF '98), subtitled Dream Match Never Ends in Japan or The Slugfest elsewhere, is a 1998 2D arcade fighting game released by SNK for the Neo Geo system MVS, AES, CD.

The game provides no storyline in contrast to the previous games and instead is labelled as a "dream match" like its subtitle where the player selects a team composed of three characters to participate in a King of Fighters tournament until reaching the boss Rugal Bernstein even though the character dies in The King of Fighters '95.

Another updated version in 2008 was made for the Taito Type X arcade system subtitled Ultimate Match (KOF '98UM), which expands the number of playable characters by returning characters from the Orochi arc, further tweaks the gameplay and features a third fighting style option; this version was ported to PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 home systems.

A third update, subtitled Ultimate Match Final Edition (KOF '98UMFE), was released in 2011 on arcades and since ported to Windows and PlayStation 4.

Like in KOF '97, the player has a choice between two playing styles: Advance and Extra, with a few slight modifications to Advanced mode (unlike in KOF '97, the character will resume to normal if the player performs a Super Special Move in MAX state).

In terms of the story, the Orochi Arc of KOF has come to an end, and in response to that, SNK wanted to give the series a "special" nature.

Therefore, there was no story for 98, but various characters This is the first time that the KOF series has had a subtitle, and the developers wanted to express that it has a different position from the previous games.

[14] In promoting the "Dream Match", Shinkiro's illustrations also led to characters in calm state while wearing formal clothes even if it does not fit.

[16] In The King of Fighters '96, several moves from Kyo Kusanagi were changed in order to adapt him to the new game system.

However, the original moveset was still popular among gamers and as such, an alternative version of Kyo was added to The King of Fighters '97.

Additionally, some of his special moves were redesigned, which the staff found to have made him the strongest version of Rugal as well as one of their favorites.

[4] It was also released for the Neo Geo AES on September 23, 1998, the Neo-Geo CD on December 23, 1998, and the PlayStation on March 25, 1999.

[20] The Neo Geo AES version was added via emulation to the Wii Virtual Console in Japan on October 23, 2012, in North America on March 7, 2013 and in the PAL region on May 30, 2013.

A China-exclusive version for the PolyGame Master 2 arcade hardware was also released in 2009, which was called The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match Hero.

New moves were added to the USA Sports Team to improve their playability, and EX versions of certain characters not featured in the original version were added, namely King with her Art of Fighting 2 moveset, and Ryuji Yamazaki, Blue Mary and Geese Howard with their Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers movesets.

New stages were added to the game such as China and Hong Kong to show appreciation for KOF's high popularity in such regions; it is also the only fighting game to feature an accurate representation of Saudi Arabia in one stage, as the country was a major market for the NEO GEO line in the early 1990s.

An updated version titled The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match Final Edition, featuring balance changes for most characters, was released for arcades on January 24, 2011.

A mobile RPG based on Ultimate Match, called The King of Fighters '98UM OL, was released by Chinese company Ourpalm for the iOS and Android platforms on July 9, 2016.

[43] Jeremy Dunham from IGN gave the game an 8.4, praising, apart from the gameplay and characters, the graphics, the music as well as the background designs added for the Dreamcast version.

[44] GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann found it to be one of the best 2D fighting games, noting that although new players may find it hard to play due to the difficulty in executing various special moves and how difficult the opponent AI is.

He also found that the game had a bug when he tried to perform a special move from Mai Shiranui, which unlike the other versions, is very inconsistent.