Manufacturer

Midway

Origin Date

Released: 1994

Description

Killer Instinct is a 1994 fighting game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo. It was originally released for arcades by Midway in October 1994, and ported to both the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Game Boy the following year. The game’s plot involves an all-powerful corporation organizing a fighting tournament. The story was adapted in a limited comic book series published under the short-lived Acclaim Comics imprint.

Killer Instinct featured more detailed graphics and more diverse characters than any other games of its genre as well as some gameplay elements unique to fighting games of the time. Instead of fighting enemies in best-of-three-rounds bouts, each player has two life bars. The player that depletes the other player’s life bars first wins the match. The game also introduced “auto-doubles”, a feature which allows players to press a certain sequence of buttons to make characters automatically perform combos on opponents. Also featured in the game are “combo breakers”, special defensive moves that can interrupt combos.

A critical and commercial success, Killer Instinct was followed by a sequel, the 1996 arcade game Killer Instinct 2, later ported to the Nintendo 64 as Killer Instinct Gold. After Microsoft acquired the franchise alongside developer Rare, a new 2013 game rebooting the franchise was released, serving as a launch title for the Xbox One. An emulated version of the original game is included with the 2013 game, under the title Killer Instinct Classic. The SNES version of the game was re-released on the Nintendo Classics service on February 21, 2024. Retrospective lists by various publications included it among the best fighting games of all time.