A brief history of fighting games
Or, how the word “versus” became one of the most important terms in our collective video game lexicon
There is a “meet cute” early in the 1988 martial arts action flick Bloodsport where the hero (a fresh-faced Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his soon-to-be best friend (a hirsute Donald Gibb) instantly bond over a game of Data East’s 1984 Karate Champ.
It’s brief, but the moment captures why the fighting game has been a cornerstone of the video game experience since coin-ops ruled the land.
There’s a competitive purity in how these games pit player vs. player—forcing them to stand uncomfortably close, side-by-side (even now, with home consoles, it’s almost an innate instinct to sit close to your opponent). And these games weren’t about simply dodging obstacles and advancing stages, you had to know the intricacies of how to manipulate buttons and joysticks to pull off power moves. They took real skill. Skill no one taught you, you had to learn through trial, error, and quarter after quarter.
To honor this integral part of gaming’s DNA, here’s a quick history of how the fighting game became an undisputed heavyweight legend.
Although Karate Champ is still considered the granddaddy of all fighting games, the first official entry was actually 1976’s Heavyweight Champ. It pit two “boxers” resembling angry amoebas against one another with essentially two attack options: low punch, and slightly-less-low punch.
In 1984, Karate Champ—with its unique dual joystick controls—introduced the element of skill to the genre. Players learned that by rotating and manipulating the sticks in certain ways, they could perform leg sweeps, roundhouse kicks, and gut-punches.
A year later, Konami introduced Yie Ar Kung-Fu (with its frenetic, anxiety-inducing soundtrack). The game also borrowed from classic kung fu movies and introduced characters with strikingly different looks, fighting styles, and even weapons. It also added the all-important “health bar” element. These were important precedents, even if Yie Ar Kung-Fu was really a single-player experience in the end.
And then things got serious. Yes, Capcom technically uttered its first Hadouken in 1987 with original Street Fighter (featuring primitive versions of later Street Fighter legends Ryu and Sagat), but it was 1991’s Street Fighter II that blasted the genre into the stratosphere. Introducing colorful characters and unique power moves (achieved through a combination of joystick and a whopping 6 buttons), it quickly became the gold standard.
Side fun fact: The Street Fighter II “car smashing mini-game” was alleged based on a real event. Programmer Yoshihiro Matsui claims that their original offices were in a bad part of town, and one night he walked out to find a bunch of drunk guys betting on how much they could total Matsui’s car with just their hands and feet. Voila!
The runaway success of Street Fighter led to imitators, competitors, and further innovation in the space. Mortal Kombat came on the scene in 1995 and cemented its unique look and feel with the use of digitized live actors, while also introducing comically over-the-top blood and gore.
Another fun side fact: Midway Games initially wanted to make a game based on the movie Universal Soldier, starring Van Damme. Then they changed their minds and started working on a Bloodsport-esque fighting game intended to star Van Damme. Both fell through, but the result was Mortal Kombat (and the character Johnny Cage, who was intended to be a spoof of Van Damme). Van Damme himself, meanwhile, would eventually star in…a Street Fighter movie.
Like Karate Champ, Sega’s Virtua Fighter wasn’t technically the first 3D fighting game (that honor goes to the much lesser-known 4D Sports Boxing), but it was by far the most influential. Followed not long after by Tekken, both games would push the possibilities (and required skill levels) even further ahead—there was even a game that had stop-motion animated dinosaurs!
The next few decades saw newer and newer variations on the concept, including wild crossovers and a surprising amount of staying power even in a rapidly evolving game landscape.
OK, so who’s got next?