SNK are very aware of their poor reputation in the US, and they're extremely desperate to fix that. Putting Geese in XIV was a bid to throw the American fans a bone, since statistically he's known to be particularly popular in the states. Needless to say, that didn't work very well, because the game still drastically underperformed in America. They did some market research and have decided to tailor most of NGBC2's design and motifs around American tastes. This was a factor in deciding what characters wouldn't return, particularly Shermie and Hotaru, since they're not convinced Americans will like sexy or cute female characters. These characters will likely not be removed from KoF, but since NGBC2 is being developed with the American market in mind, they decided to scrap them here.
I was told that Kula's drastic change in appearance and personality is part of an attempt to rebrand the character as their "mascot" for the American region. They found that a lot of American gamers seemed to really enjoy cyberpunk elements and androgynous/masculine female characters so they based Kula's redesign around those elements and gave her a less cute, more aggressive personality to fit her new look. I was told that they were inspired to do this because of the success of similar dark reboots like the Devil May Cry one from Capcom. They're hoping that they can use the new Kula to promote the SNK brand in the US, and if she's popular they might consider altering Kula in the main KOF games to match, but only for the US version. I asked why they wouldn't just create a new character, and was told that they considered it but they wanted to do something new with a fan favorite and take advantage of their existing popularity.
Additionally, they altered or outright removed a lot of the sexual elements of other characters due to the reception that popular games like SFV and MKX had for cleaning up their female characters. They first thought of this when Capcom altered the camera angles on R. Mika and Cammy. Allegedly, they had no clue that American audiences were sensitive to these types of things until very recently. I was assured that these changes were not being made with eSports in mind, but rather because they've seen the various controversies over sexualized female characters from Western gamers and the outcry from the mainstream gaming media. They believe that they'll reach a bigger audience this way, because their core fans will support them no matter what, and with these changes the average American gamer demographic will be more likely to jump onboard.
