Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Jacob Bertrand, and Gianni Decenzo reprise their roles as Daniel LaRusso, Johnny Lawrence, Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz, and Demetri respectively, while the rest of the other characters are voiced by different actors.
Paulo Luis Santos, Creative Director and Executive Producer of the game, said he had not watched the show when the opportunity came along to pitch a Cobra Kai game concept to GameMill Entertainment. He decided to watch an episode or two to get into a Karate Kid headspace and 20 hours later had binged both seasons and was writing mechanics and ideas all over the place in a 100 page slideshow. He became a die-hard fan as soon as Johnny called MIguel "Menudo" in the first minutes of the first episode. At this point, he and his team watched the series countless times to bring as much of it to the game as possible. That's why they have characters that don't appear that much on the series having more screen time in the game.
The game features two campaigns: Cobra Kai and Miyagi Do. Each one allows you to explore the city with characters from that dojo and learn the story from that dojo's perspective and face the other dojo's fighters as bosses. The true ending, however, only reveals itself to those who play both campaigns.
The game was announced on August 25, 2020. A trailer for the game was released the same day.
Released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 27, 2020, while a Microsoft Windows version will be released on January 5, 2021. The Nintendo Switch version was released in Europe on November 24, 2020.