When designing characters for the first King of Fighters game, developers wanted a new, "snazzy" hero who would fight against Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters. Through most of his development, Kyo was named Syo Kirishima (霧島 翔, Kirishima Shō) and was dressed in martial arts clothing common in fighting games of the time. Late in production, however, his name was changed to Kyo Kusanagi to relate him to the Yamata no Orochi legend that was used as the idea for the first story arc.