Creator / Arc System Works

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Arc System Works is a Japanese video game company. Founded by Minoru Kidooka in 1988 as Arc Co., Ltd., it spent its early years laboring in obscurity as a contract developer for the likes of Sega, Face and Banpresto before coming into its own as a publisher in 1995. Since then it has created quite a few of the modern fighting games. Examples include Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, and Battle Fantasia.

As stated in their official website👁 Image
and in related online platforms👁 Image
, the company's name is alternatively written in uppercase letters. The "ARC" in "ARC SYSTEM WORKS" is specifically an acronym which represents their three-word slogan; "Action. Revolution. Challenge." Meanwhile, their company logo was designed👁 Image
to look like a wave that spells out the word "Arc".

Not to be confused with the similarly-named but otherwise unrelated Aksys Games, a North American distributor known for publishing many of their games in the US. They also have a European branch in the form of Zen United/pQube.

The main team responsible for Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, originally named "Team Neo Blood," was composed of Samurai Shodown, The Last Blade, and The King of Fighters developers from SNK, which explains why many characters in the first Guilty Gear game are blatant expies or amalgamations of characters from those games, and typical gameplay in their titles tends to be heavily high-damage and combo-oriented, with lots of juggling.

Since then, the company has split itself among two teams: "Team Red" - focused more on ''Guilty Gear'', and "Team Blue", responsible for ''BlazBlue'' and other sprite-based games.

Early games developed by Arc for other companies:

• Battletoads (Sega Genesis version)
• Double Dragon (Sega Master System version)
• Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (Sega Master System version)
• Minesweeper (Game Boy and PC Engine versions)
• Pizza Pop!
• Sailor Moon
  • Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S: Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen (uncredited, published by Angel)
  • Sailor Moon: Another Story
• Zipang (PC Engine version)
• Strikers 1945 Plus (PlayStation Portable version)
• Ys
  • Ys IV: Mask of the Sun (PlayStation 2 version)
  • Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand (PlayStation 2 version)

Games and series developed by Arc System Works (in whole):

• Arc Style: Baseball!! 3D
• Battle Fantasia
• Birthdays the Beginning
• BlazBlue
  • BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
  • BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
  • BlazBlue: Chronophantasma
  • BlazBlue: Central Fiction
  • XBlaze Code: Embryo
  • BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle
• Code Shifter
• Damascus Gear
• Damon and Baby
• The Family/Okiraku [X] game series on WiiWare and on Nintendo 3DS via eShop
• Guilty Gear
• Hoshigami Remix
• Inferno Climber
• Magical Beat
• Of Mice and Sand
• Wizard's Symphony

Games and series acquired by Arc System Works from Technos Japan

• Double Dragon
  • Double Dragon IV
• Kunio-kun
• Super Dodge Ball

Games and series developed by Arc System Works (in part):

• Another Code: Recollection (in collaboration with Nintendo)
• Arcana Heart 3 (console and PC ports only)
• DNF Duel (In collaboration with Neople and Eighting)
• Getsuei Academy Kou (a former doujin game in collaboration with Tomokazu Sugita)
• Granblue Fantasy Versus (co-developed with Cygames)
• Hard Corps: Uprising (co-developed with Konami)
• Jake Hunter (originally developed by Data East, later Workjam — with one game being in collaboration with Marvelous Interactive. Later games were developed by Arc System Works along with another developer.)
• Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls (co-developed with Marvel Games and PlayStation Studios)
• Persona
  • Persona 4 Arena (in collaboration with Atlus)
  • Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (in collaboration with Atlus)
• Sengoku Basara X (in collaboration with Capcom)
• Castle Shikigami III (co-developed by Alfa System)
• Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters (co-developed with Toy Box, Inc.)
• Under Night In-Birth (co-developed with French Bread)

Adaptations

• Dragon Ball
  • Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors
  • Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butouden
  • Dragon Ball FighterZ
• Fist of the North Star: Twin Blue Stars of Judgment
• Kill la Kill: IF (publisher)
• One Piece: Grand Pirate Colosseum
• RWBY: Arrowfell (co-developed with WayForward Technologies in collaboration with Rooster Teeth)

Publishing only

• Chaos Code (publisher)
• Mistover (publisher)
• Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code (publisher, Steam version)
• Skullgirls 2nd Encore (publisher, Japan)