Killer Instinct

About

Killer Instinct (often abbreviated to KI) is a series of fighting games created by Rare in 1994. Featuring a unique cast of characters from around the world, KI was Nintendo's answer to the fighting game craze of the 90's. Since its creation, the series has spawned multiple games, comics, and action figures.

Gameplay

Like other fighting games of the time, Killer Instinct ^[1] pitted to characters against each other in a one-on-one encounter. The game borrowed the attack set of Street Fighter and but was also inspired by the Fatality system of Mortal Kombat Other features that distinguished Killer Instinct included a double-energy bar, automatic combos, finishing moves, and ultra combos.

History

The Nintendo Era

The original Killer Instinct was released in arcades in 1994 with a home port initially slated for release on the Nintendo Ultra 64 in 1995. As development of the Ultra 64 got pushed back, Killer Instinct was instead released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) a year after its arcade release. A sequel to the arcade game was released in 1996 called Killer Instinct 2. KI2 would be ported over to the Nintendo 64 (N64) as Killer Instinct Gold that same year. The franchise would then lay dormant for the next 17 years as Rare focused its efforts on other games up to and after the company's acquisition by Microsoft in 2002.

The Microsoft Era

At E3 2013, a reboot^[2] of Killer Instinct developed by Double Helix was revealed at Microsoft's press conference as an Xbox One exclusive. The reveal came as a surprise to many in the fighting game community, such as Maximilian Dood, who grew up playing the original arcade games.

This new iteration of Killer Instinct launched with the Xbox One on November 22, 2013 as a free to play title with a paid version that included access to the initial current and future characters as well as a port of the original Killer Instinct arcade game. KI 2013 would continue development with major content updates labelled as "seasons." Seasons 2 & 3 would be developed by Iron Galaxy Studios after Double Helix's acquisition by Amazon. The game would see a release on Windows 10 with the launch of Season 3 with a "Definitive Edition" being released on Steam the next year. The last major update for the game would by released in early 2017 with the game's last added character, Eagle. A campaign to raise awareness among Microsoft leadership of fans' desires for a follow up to KI 2013 was launched by Maximilian Dood on July 25th, 2019 under the hashtag "#BringBackKI."^[5] Maximilian's Twitter announcement would reach over 8K retweets and over 12K likes.^[3]

Reception

Killer Instinct is generally held with high regard within the fighting game community during both the Nintendo era and the current Microsoft era. KI 2013 would be one of the main games featured at EVO 2014, EVO 2015, and EVO 2016 as well as having its own major tournament, the Killer Instinct World Cup. Exact sales numbers for KI 2013 are not known but it remained one of the Xbox One's most downloaded games during the console's early years. During the game's Steam launch in 2017, Microsoft revealed that 10 million players had played the game.^[4]

Soundtrack

The soundtracks of the Killer Instinct series have also been widely praised by fans and people who work in the industry. The Nintendo era KI games were primarily composed by Rare veteran, Robin Beanland. Notable songs from this era include The Way U Move and K.I. Feeling. The first two seasons of KI 2013 where composed by Mick Gordon. Gordon, a fan^[6] of the series, took heavy inspiration from Beanland's work and included homages to character's previous themes in his own compositions. Likely due to his work with id Software's 2016 reboot of DOOM, Gordon was unable to compose the third season of KI 2013. The third season was instead composed by Atlas Plug and Celldeweller^[7] who worked hard to match the style and tone set by Gordon.

Related Memes

COMBO BREAKER

Combo Breaker, sometimes seen as C-C-C-C-Combo Breaker!, is a phrase usually used on message boards to break a chain of posts. On 4chan, the phrase is disrupt a popular pastime known as a Combo, which involves posting a series of partially cropped images to bring out the full picture in a given thread.

Search Interest

External References