Rare's legendary fighting game series Killer Instinct turns 30 this month.
The original arcade machine was released on October 24th (or the 28th, depending on who you believe), 1994, in North America.
Designed by Chris Tilston, Mark Betteridge, Kevin Bayliss and Ken Lobb, it made excellent use of pre-rendered CGI characters and backgrounds to create a visual experience unlike anything seen in arcades at that time.
Also notable were the game's massive combos, which allowed players to chain together multi-hit attacks in spectacular fashion.
Speaking to us a few years ago, Bayliss – who would craft the unique characters as well as posing as a reference model for many of the moves – considered it to be a dream project:
For me, it was all I ever wanted to make, a fighting game. So I was really excited not just to be able to make one, but to use the new tech for the graphics which I thought would really help make it stand out. Street Fighter II and Double Dragon were so great looking in my opinion, and I was worried about being able to make something that looked as iconic – but fortunately, it all worked out, and I’m really over the moon that the original still gets talked about today.
Killer Instinct would later be ported to the SNES and Game Boy. The former is available to play on the Nintendo Switch Online service.
A sequel followed in 1996, upon which the N64 title Killer Instinct Gold was based. The series would be rebooted as an Xbox exclusive in 2013, with developer Double Helix Games taking over from Rare (Iron Galaxy would step in when Double Helix was purchased by Amazon in 2014).