List of fighting game developers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of fighting game developers.
- Capcom are best known for the Street Fighter (1987) , whose hugely innovative second incarnation (Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, 1991) virtually invented the modern fighting game. They have since released a plethora of sequels, spin-offs, remakes, movie tie-ins and 'versus' games. They are also the creators behind the Darkstalkers series and Final Fight. Their most recent significant contributions to the genre are Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Onimusha: Blade Warriors was another attempt by Capcom to make a fighting game, building upon the already popular Onimusha series.
- SNK were the makers of the long-running King of Fighters series for Neo Geo consoles and arcade machines. Almost as prolific as Capcom, they declared bankruptcy in 2001. However, the company Playmore has acquired the rights to the SNK name and much of its intellectual property, as well as reforming with the original SNK members. Samurai Showdown and Fatal Fury also help put SNK on the map.
- Midway sparked an incredible amount of controversy with 1992's Mortal Kombat, a 2D fighter with semi-realistic sprites and cartoonish gore. Primal Rage was similar in style to Mortal Kombat, but did not sell as well to the public. The most recent games, Mortal Kombat 4, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, and Mortal Kombat: Deception are in 3D.
- Namco, the creators of Tekken and Soul Calibur (1998), are the other major player in the fighter world.
- Arc System Works are responsible for the Guilty Gear series, a 2D fighting game renowned for its strange character design and unique gameplay, also featuring the highest resolution 2d graphics in a fighting game.
- SEGA's AM2 team are the developers of the 3D Virtua Fighter series (1993), which has seen five versions, as well as spin-offs like Virtua Fighter Kids and Virtua Quest. It is considered by many fighter enthusiasts to be the deepest of the 3D fighters. Fighting Vipers was a similar game by AM2 with a glam rock theme, but did poorly in the US and Europe. Virtual-On also did very poorly in US sales.
- Tecmo's division Team Ninja has developed every instance of the Dead or Alive fighting game series. The creation of the Dead or Alive franchise most likely saved Tecmo from both financial and business collapse.
- Nintendo has had released such games as the Super Smash Bros. series (developed by HAL Laboratory) and Killer Instinct (developed by Rare), which put this company on the fighting scene as well. Before those fighting games, Nintendo's first fighting game was the Japan-only title, Joy Mech Fight, which didn't sell too well.
- Hudson Soft is the video game developer for the hit fighting series Bloody Roar, which has sold several copies for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube worldwide.
- Technos made the inmensly popular Double Dragon series, which, through the course of its existence, has sold millions of units of its console ports. Though it was a short-lived company and made few versus fighting games, which were poorly received, its fans still regard it as one of the pivotal companies in the fighting genre of video games.
