Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
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Outer Wilds is a 2019 action-adventure video game developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game follows the player character as they explore a planetary system stuck in a 22-minute time loop that resets after the sun goes supernova and destroys the system. Through repeated attempts they investigate the alien ruins of the Nomai to discover their history and the cause of the time loop.
The game began development in 2012 as director Alex Beachum's master's thesis. He was inspired to create a game focused on exploration in which the player character was not the center of the game world. Beachum led a small team in building the game, first as an independent project, then as a commercial game at Mobius after the project won the Excellence in Design and Seumas McNally Grand Prize awards at the 2015 Independent Games Festival. Annapurna joined the project as the publisher in 2015 and funded its expansion beyond a student project.
Outer Wilds was released for Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 in 2019, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2022, and for Nintendo Switch in 2023. An expansion which explores further themes in a new location in the planetary system, Echoes of the Eye, was begun in 2019 and released for the same platforms in 2021. Outer Wilds was positively received upon release, with most critics acclaiming its design and some criticizing the uneven difficulty of gameplay and pursuing the game's mysteries. Echoes of the Eye was also positively received, with some criticism for its introduction of horror elements. Outer Wilds was featured in several game of the year lists for 2019 as well as game of the decade lists, and won in multiple categories at award shows, including the Best Game award at the 16th British Academy Games Awards. (Full article...)
These industry changes led to difficult competition by the mid-1990s, especially in the adventure game genre. Legend secured an investment from book publishing company Random House and developed additional book adaptations, such as Death Gate and Shannara, as well as original titles such as Mission Critical. However, the company's expenses for graphics were rising without a similar increase in sales, causing Random House to exit the game industry. Legend found game publishers to take over marketing and distribution so it could focus its efforts exclusively on development. While the studio's adventure titles suffered in the changing marketplace, working with game publishers allowed Legend to experiment with more action-oriented titles such as Star Control 3. In its final years, Legend fully pivoted to first-person shooters thanks to a growing relationship with Unreal developer Tim Sweeney and an acquisition by publisher GT Interactive. The studio released the 1999 game adaptation of The Wheel of Time book series, designed using the Unreal Engine as a first-person action game. However, Legend's sales continued to dwindle, followed by the difficult development and commercial failure of Unreal II: The Awakening in 2003. The studio was shut down in January 2004, with staff moving to other game companies. (Full article...)
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Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy is a 2006 Lego-themed action-adventure game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by LucasArts and TT Games Publishing. It was released on 11 September 2006. Part of the Lego Star Wars series, it is based on the Star Wars science fiction media franchise and Lego Group's Lego Star Wars construction toy line. It follows the events of the Star Wars films A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The game allows players to assume the roles of over 50 Lego versions of characters from the film series; customized characters can also be created. Camera movement was improved from its predecessor Lego Star Wars: The Video Game and the concept of "vehicle levels" was explored more thoroughly. The game was revealed at American International Toy Fair. Promotions for the game were set up at chain stores across the United States.
Lego Star Wars II was critically and commercially successful; it has sold over 8.2 million copies worldwide as of May 2009. Critics praised the game for its comedic and "adorable" portrayal of the film series and due to preference for the original trilogy over the prequel trilogy. However, the game's low difficulty, and its Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS versions in general, were received more poorly. The game received awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Spike TV, among others. A mobile phone adaptation, Lego Star Wars II Mobile, was later developed by Universomo, published by THQ, and released on 5 January 2007. Lego Star Wars II and its predecessor were compiled in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, released much later that year. (Full article...)
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The Ur-Quan are a fictional race of predatory aliencaterpillars in the Star Control series of video games, created by Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford. Introduced in 1990, the Ur-Quan are the primary antagonist of the first game, leading a galacticempire that seeks to enslave Earth. They reprise their role in Star Control II, which expands on their history as former slaves who since vowed to fiercely defend themselves. During the game, the Ur-Quan enter into a civil war over their ideology, giving Earth an opportunity to defeat them. In Star Control 3, which was developed by a different team, the Ur-Quan ally with Earth against a different antagonist and their role is scaled back. They appear once again in The Ur-Quan Masters, the 2002 open sourceremake of Star Control II.
Reiche and Ford developed the Ur-Quan based on the concepts for unique spaceships in Star Control; their insectoid appearance was inspired by a National Geographic photo of a caterpillar. Their role in Star Control II has earned acclaim among the best game villains in history, praised for their menacing persona, as well as their surprising depth and humanity. The Ur-Quan have also influenced other game studios, inspiring concepts in games such as Mass Effect and Stellaris. (Full article...)
Bloodlines is presented from first-person and third-person perspectives. The player assigns their character to one of several vampire clans—each with unique powers, customizes their combat and dialog abilities, and progresses through Bloodlines using violent and nonviolent methods. The selection of clan affects how the player is perceived in the game world and which powers and abilities they possess; this opens up different avenues of exploration and methods of interacting with or manipulating other characters. The player can complete side missions away from the primary storyline by moving freely between the available hubs: Santa Monica, Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles, and Chinatown.
Troika's 32-member team began developing Bloodlines in November 2001 as an indirect sequel to the previous year's Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption. Troika used Valve's Sourcegame engine, then in development, which was used for Valve's own Half-Life 2. The game's production was turbulent, as the design's scope exceeded the available resources, and the team was left without a producer for nearly a year until Activision appointed David Mullich to the role, where he found designs and levels unfinished or abandoned. After three years in development with no end in sight and running over budget, Activision set a strict deadline for completion, and Bloodlines was released incomplete in November 2004. (Full article...)
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Final Fantasy IX is a 2000 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation video game console. It is the ninth game in the main Final Fantasy series. The plot focuses on a war between nations in a medieval fantasy world called Gaia. Players follow a thief named Zidane Tribal who kidnaps princess Garnet Til Alexandros XVII as part of a ploy by the neighboring nation of Lindblum. He joins Garnet and a growing cast of characters on a quest to take down her mother, Queen Brahne of Alexandria, who started the war.
Game development occurred in parallel with Final Fantasy VIII. Envisioned by developers as a retrospective for the series, it departed from the futuristic settings of Final Fantasy VI, VII, and VIII by returning to the medieval style of the earlier games. Consequently, it draws heavy influence from the original Final Fantasy and features allusions to the rest of the series. The game introduced new features to the series despite this approach, such as "Active Time Event" cutscenes, "Mognet", and skill systems. Final Fantasy IX was the last game in the main series whose music was composed solely by Nobuo Uematsu.
Final Fantasy IX was released to critical acclaim and commercial success, selling more than 5.5 million copies on PlayStation by March 2016. It was re-released in 2010 as a PS1 Classic on the PlayStation Store—this version was compatible with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable; PlayStation Vita support arrived in 2012. In 2016 Square Enix released an enhanced port featuring minor gameplay and graphical enhancements, which would be released on several platforms. An animated series adaptation by Square Enix and Cyber Group Studios was announced in 2021. (Full article...)
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Crush is a 2007 puzzle-platform game developed by Kuju Entertainment's Zoë Mode studio and published by Sega for the PlayStation Portable. Its protagonist is Danny, a young man suffering from insomnia, who uses an experimental device to explore his mind and discover the cause of his sleeplessness. Each level of the game, representing events from Danny's life and inspired by artists such as Tim Burton and M.C. Escher, requires the player to control Danny as he collects his "lost marbles" and other thoughts.
Crush's primary gameplay feature involves manipulating each game level between 3D and 2D views, allowing the player to reach platforms and locations inaccessible from within a different view. This element was noted by critics to be similar to one in Super Paper Mario, also released in 2007, though the Zoë Mode team had envisioned the concept five years prior. Crush received positive reviews upon release, with critics praising its incorporation of this dimension-shifting component alongside other aspects of the game presentation. Though Crush won several gaming awards, including PSP game of the month, it failed to meet the developer's sales expectations. A port of the game for the Nintendo 3DS called CRUSH3D was announced in January 2011 and was made available in January 2012 in Europe; in February 2012 in Australia; and in March 2012 in North America. (Full article...)
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Lightning (ライトニング, Raitoningu) is a character from the Final Fantasy video game series made by Square Enix. She first appeared as a playable character and the main protagonist in the role-playing video gameFinal Fantasy XIII, in which she is a resident of the artificial world of Cocoon. After her sister Serah is declared an enemy of Cocoon, Lightning attempts to save her and is chosen by divine powers to destroy Cocoon. Lightning reappears as a supporting character in Final Fantasy XIII-2, acting as protector of the Goddess Etro. She is the sole playable character in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, wherein she sets out to save the people of her dying world. Outside the XIII series, Lightning has been featured in multiple Final Fantasy games and had cameo appearances in other video games.
Lightning was created by Motomu Toriyama, the director and scenario writer of XIII, and designed by regular Final Fantasy artist Tetsuya Nomura. The design goal was a character who was less feminine than previous Final Fantasy heroines in both appearance and personality. Aspects of her early design and personality were later altered, or transferred to other characters. After XIII, Lightning's design was revised several times to reflect her role and development in each game, particularly in Lightning Returns. Her real name in Japanese, Éclair Farron, was originally a placeholder. Because of her first name's association with a type of pastry, it was changed to "Claire" in other countries.
Lightning has received mixed commentary from critics—much of it relating to her cold personality, which was compared to that of Final Fantasy VIIs protagonist Cloud Strife. She was criticized for her relative absence in XIII-2. Her role in Lightning Returns met with mixed reception: some critics saw her as underdeveloped and unlikable, while others found her better developed and more human than in previous games. Lightning later appeared on lists, compiled by video game publications, of the best characters in the Final Fantasy series and in video games as a whole. She has been received favorably in polls of public opinion by Famitsu, Square Enix, and other organizations. ('Full article...)
The Master Chief is a towering supersoldier known as a "Spartan", trained from childhood for combat. The designers intended for players to be able to project their own intentions into the character and thus reduced his voiced lines and concealed his appearance under his armor. In the video games, the character is voiced by former disc jockeySteve Downes, who based his performance on Bungie's description calling for a man of few words, similar to Clint Eastwood. In spin-off media, he is portrayed by different voice and physical actors, most notably Pablo Schreiber on the 2022 live-action TV series.
A pop culture icon, Master Chief is widely regarded as one of the greatest video game characters of all time, with the character being seen as a mascot for Halo and the Xbox brand. His 2001 debut received a generally positive reception for his character design, with publications praising how the narrative allows players to inhabit the character, while others have criticized him as under characterized. In later Halo games developed by 343 Industries, the characterization of Master Chief earned praise for exploring his humanity and his relationship with Cortana. (Full article...)
Chung began developing Flotilla immediately after the closure of Pandemic Studios, where he had worked as a designer. The new game used assets imported from Chung's early space combat prototype, Space Piñata. Flotilla incorporates several pieces of classical music in its score, such as Chopin's "Raindrop" prelude. It received mixed reviews from video game media outlets, scoring 72 out of 100 on review aggregate website Metacritic, and was included in Mike Rose's book 250 Indie Games You Must Play. (Full article...)
... that Rockstar Vienna was the largest video game developer in Austria when it closed in 2006?
... that development on the video game Expeditions: Rome was not affected by lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic because the developer was already split between Copenhagen and Istanbul?
... that before Sarah Elmaleh voiced the player character in the video game Anthem, developed by BioWare, she voiced characters in a mod of an earlier BioWare game?
... that the developers of the video game Golf Club: Wasteland jokingly announced that they would only sell one copy at a price of $500 million?
... that the urban legend Herobrine was ranked on a Guinness World Records poll of the best video game villains, despite never existing?
... that the concept of adding strippers to the extreme sports video game BMX XXX was initially proposed in jest?
... that the 1979 video game Superman was one of the first console games with a pause feature?
In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time. (Full article...)
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Uematsu in 2011
Nobuo Uematsu (植松 伸夫, Uematsu Nobuo, born March 21, 1959) is a Japanese composer and keyboardist best known for his contributions to the Final Fantasy video game series by Square Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton John as one of his biggest influences.
Uematsu joined Square in 1986, where he first met Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. The two later worked together on many games at the company, most notably in the Final Fantasy series. After nearly two decades with Square, Uematsu left in 2004 to create his own production company and music label, Dog Ear Records. He has since composed music as a freelancer for other games, including ones developed by Square Enix and Sakaguchi's studio Mistwalker. (Full article...)
Fischbach is one of the most popular gaming YouTubers on the platform. He was listed by Forbes as the third highest-paid content creator on the platform in 2022, and has won four Streamy Awards and a Golden Joystick Award for "Best Streamer/Broadcaster". (Full article...)
After working at Capcom for thirteen years, he left the company to form his own studio, Whoopee Camp. His latest game was Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection for former employer Capcom. He is notorious for making his titles difficult for the average video game player and strict personality among peers. IGN listed Fujiwara at number 13 in its "Top 100 Game Creators of All Time" list. (Full article...)
Tōru Iwatani (岩谷 徹, Iwatani Tōru, born January 25, 1955) is a Japanese video game designer who spent much of his career working for Namco. He is best known as the creator of the arcade gamePac-Man (1980). In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time. (Full article...)
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Soule in 2010
Jeremy Soule (/soʊl/SOHL; born December 19, 1975) is an American composer of soundtracks for film, television, and video games. He has composed soundtracks for over 60 games and over a dozen other works during his career, including The Elder Scrolls, Guild Wars, Icewind Dale, and the Harry Potter series.
He became an employee of Square in 1994 after several years of private composition studies. After finishing the soundtrack to Secret of Evermore in 1995, he left to join Humongous Entertainment, where he composed for several children's games as well as Total Annihilation, his first award-winning score. In 2000, he left to form his own music production company, Soule Media, later called Artistry Entertainment. In 2005, he founded DirectSong, a record label that published digital versions of his soundtracks as well as those of classical composers. DirectSong remained active until 2019. (Full article...)
Following disputes with Carmack, Romero was fired from id in 1996. He co-founded a new studio, Ion Storm, and directed the FPS Daikatana (2000), which was a critical and commercial failure. Romero departed Ion Storm in 2001. In July 2001, he and another former id employee, Tom Hall, founded Monkeystone Games to develop games for mobile devices. (Full article...)
William James Mitchell Jr. (born July 16, 1965) is an American video game player. He achieved fame throughout the 1980s and 1990s by claiming numerous records on classic video games, including a perfect score on Pac-Man. Twin Galaxies and Guinness World Records recognized Mitchell as the holder of several records earned playing classic video games, and he has appeared in several documentaries on competitive gaming and retrogaming. However, in 2017, the legitimacy of a number of his records was called into question, leading to Twin Galaxies stripping Mitchell of his records.
Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), also known by his nickname Gaben, is an American businessman who is the president and co-founder of the video game company Valve Corporation.
Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California. He attended Harvard University in the early 1980s but dropped out to join Microsoft, where he helped create the first versions of the Windows operating system. He and another employee, Mike Harrington, left Microsoft in 1996 to found Valve, and funded the development of their first game, Half-Life (1998). Harrington left in 2000. (Full article...)
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Rolfe in character as the Nerd in 2021
James D. Rolfe (born July 10, 1980) is an American YouTuber, filmmaker, and actor. He is best known for creating and starring in the comedic retrogaming web series Angry Video Game Nerd (2004–present). His spin-off projects include reviews of retro films, television series, and board games. He is considered a pioneer of Internet gaming videos, and is noted for his widespread influence on YouTube content after the series premiered on the site in 2006.
Rolfe began creating homemade video productions in the late 1980s, having created more than 270 videos and short films by 2004. Among these were the first Angry Video Game Nerd (originally known as Bad NES Games, and later Angry Nintendo Nerd) episodes, which were subsequently released on his Cinemassacre website that same year. Two years later, he gained mainstream attention after the series went viral upon being published to YouTube. Following its success, Rolfe released a feature-length film based on the series in 2014, which was met with generally mixed reception. (Full article...)
Steve Ritchie speaks during the Atari panel at California Extreme 2009
Steven Scott Ritchie (born February 13, 1950) is an American pinball and video game designer. His career began in the 1970s. Ritchie holds the record for best-selling pinball designer in history. He has been called "The Master of Flow" due to the emphasis in his designs on ball speed, loops, and long smooth shots. Ritchie was also the original voice of Shao Kahn in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series, serving as the announcer of Mortal Kombat II (1993), Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), and the updates to Mortal Kombat 3. He is the older brother of fellow pinball designer Mark Ritchie. (Full article...)
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Kojima in 2018
Hideo Kojima (小島 秀夫, Kojima Hideo, born August 24, 1963) is a Japanese video game designer. He is regarded as one of the first auteurs of video games. He developed a strong passion for film and literature during his childhood and adolescence, which in turn has had a significant influence on his games. In 1986 he joined Konami, for which he directed, designed and wrote Metal Gear (1987) for the MSX2, the game that laid the foundations for the stealth genre and the Metal Gear franchise, his best known and most acclaimed work. At Konami, he also produced the Zone of the Enders series, as well as designing and writing Snatcher (1988) and Policenauts (1994), graphic adventure games regarded for their cinematic presentation.
Kojima founded Kojima Productions within Konami in 2005, and he was appointed vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment in 2011. Following his departure from Konami in 2015, he refounded Kojima Productions as an independent studio; his first game outside Konami, Death Stranding, was released in 2019. (Full article...)
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Gunpei Yokoi (横井 軍平, Yokoi Gunpei, 10 September 1941 – 4 October 1997), sometimes transliterated as Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese toy maker and video game designer. As a long-time Nintendo employee, he was best known as creator of the Game & Watch handheld system, inventor of the cross-shaped Control Pad, the original designer of the Game Boy, and producer of a few long-running and critically acclaimed video game franchises such as Metroid and Kid Icarus. (Full article...)
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Jun Maeda (麻枝 准, Maeda Jun, born January 3, 1975) is a Japanese writer and composer. He is a co-founder of the visual novel brand Key under Visual Arts. He is considered a pioneer of nakige visual novels, and has mainly contributed as a scenario writer, lyricist, and musical composer for the games the company produces.
After graduating with a degree in psychology from Chukyo University, Maeda contributed to the scripts and scores of games released under the Tactics brand of Nexton: Moon and One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e. He has contributed both to writing music and scripts to most games released under the Key brand, notably writing the majority of Air and Clannad. He also served as a screenwriter and composer for several anime series produced by P.A. Works, such as Angel Beats! and Charlotte. (Full article...)
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Mechner in 2017
Jordan Mechner (born June 4, 1964) is an American video game designer, graphic novelist, author, screenwriter, filmmaker, and former video game programmer. A major figure in the development of cinematic video games and a pioneer in video game animation, he began his career designing and programming the 1984 martial arts game Karateka for the Apple II while a student at Yale University. The game was a bestseller. He followed it with the platform game Prince of Persia five years later; it was widely ported and became a hit. Both games used rotoscoping, where actors shot on film by Mechner were drawn over to create in-game animation. Prince of Persia has become the basis for a long-running franchise, including a 2010 live-action film released by Walt Disney Pictures and an ongoing series of video games, published by Ubisoft.
Mechner is the recipient of many accolades, including the 2017 GDC Pioneer Award. His works are often included in all-time lists of the game industry's best and most influential titles. (Full article...)
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Daigo Umehara in 2018
Daigo Umehara (Japanese: 梅原 大吾, Hepburn: Umehara Daigo, born 19 May 1981) is a Japanese esports player and author who competes competitively at fightingvideo games. He specializes in 2D arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the West and "Umehara" (ウメハラ, written in katakana instead of kanji) or "Ume" in Japan, Daigo is one of the world's most famous Street Fighter players and is often considered its greatest. His longevity is seen as an incredibly rare thing in the world of competitive video games. He currently holds a world record of "the most successful player in major tournaments of Street Fighter" in the Guinness World Records and is a six time Evo Championship Series winner.
Before properly being called a pro gamer from signing a sponsorship deal with Mad Catz, Japanese media usually referred to Daigo as "the god of 2D fighting games" (2D格闘ゲームの神, 2D Kakutō Gēmu no Kami). (Full article...)
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Baer in 2009
Ralph Henry Baer (born Rudolf Heinrich Baer; March 8, 1922 – December 6, 2014) was a German-American inventor, game developer, and engineer.
Baer's family fled Germany just before World War II and Baer served the American war effort, gaining an interest in electronics shortly thereafter. Through several jobs in the electronics industry, he was working as an engineer at Sanders Associates (now BAE Systems) in Nashua, New Hampshire, when he conceived the idea of playing games on a television screen around 1966. With support of his employers, he worked through several prototypes until he arrived at a "Brown Box" that would later become the blueprint for the first home video game console, licensed by Magnavox as the Magnavox Odyssey. Baer continued to design several other consoles and computer game units, including contributing to design of the Simon electronic game. Baer continued to work in electronics until his death in 2014, with over 150 patents to his name. (Full article...)
Sierra was acquired by CUC International in 1996, leading to layoffs and management changes. Williams took a brief sabbatical, and returned to the company in a game design role, but grew increasingly frustrated with CUC's creative and business decisions. After the release of King's Quest: Mask of Eternity in 1998, she left the game industry in 1999 and focused her retirement on traveling and writing historical fiction. In 2021 she released her historical novel, Farewell to Tara. Soon after, she returned to game development with the 3D remake of the classic adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure, released in January 2023 as Colossal Cave. (Full article...)
A fan of arcade games in his youth, Tajiri wrote for and edited his own video gaming fanzineGame Freak with Ken Sugimori, before evolving it into a development company of the same name. Tajiri claims that the joining of two Game Boys via a link cable inspired him to create a game which embodied the collection and companionship of his childhood hobby, insect collecting. The game, which became Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, took six years to complete and went on to spark a multibillion-dollar franchise which reinvigorated Nintendo's handheld gaming scene. Tajiri continued to work as director for the Pokémon series until the development of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, when he changed his role to executive producer, which he holds to this day. (Full article...)
Hiroshi Yamauchi (山内溥, Yamauchi Hiroshi, 7 November 1927 – 19 September 2013) was a Japanese businessman and the third president of Nintendo, joining the company on 25 April 1949 until stepping down on 24 May 2002, being succeeded by Satoru Iwata. During his 53-year tenure, Yamauchi transformed Nintendo from a hanafuda card-making company that had been active solely in Japan into a multibillion-dollar video game publisher and global conglomerate. He was the great-grandson of Fusajiro Yamauchi, Nintendo's first president and founder. Hiroshi Yamauchi owned the Seattle Mariners baseball team from 1992 until his death.
In April 2013, Forbes estimated Yamauchi's net worth at $2.1 billion; he was the 13th richest person in Japan and the 491st richest in the world. In 2008, Yamauchi was Japan's wealthiest person with a fortune at that time estimated at $7.8 billion. At the time of his death, Yamauchi was the largest shareholder at Nintendo. (Full article...)
Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
Outer Wilds is a 2019 action-adventure video game developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game follows the player character as they explore a planetary system stuck in a 22-minute time loop that resets after the sun goes supernova and destroys the system. Through repeated attempts they investigate the alien ruins of the Nomai to discover their history and the cause of the time loop.
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