Video games and series that made their respective companies household names.
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The Big Three
Nintendo
- The Game & Watch series for Nintendo and Gunpei Yokoi. After transitioning from a hanafuda/tabletop game company, to an experimental company struggling to find a new niche, then to a toy company, the success of these games started Nintendo's almost uncontested dominance of handheld gaming.
- Donkey Kong (1981) for Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo as an arcade game producer. Its success, especially in international markets, surprised the company to the point where it had to license The Mockbuster Crazy Kong for sale in some countries just to keep up with the demand.
- Super Mario Bros. would later be Miyamoto and the company's breakthrough in the console games business, and due to some legal issues concerning Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros. tends to be considered the breakthrough by the company itself.
- Donkey Kong Country for Rare (as a second-party developer before they were bought by Microsoft).
- Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light for Intelligent Systems in Japan, Super Metroid worldwide. Paper Mario would prove to be another breakthrough for them during the Nintendo 64 days, and Fire Emblem: Awakening was what got them recognized worldwide for Fire Emblem.
- Kirby's Dream Land for HAL Laboratory and Masahiro Sakurai. Sakurai would later get another breakthrough with Super Smash Bros.
- Kirby's Epic Yarn for Good-Feel (as a second-party developer). While their previous effort for Nintendo, Wario Land: Shake It!, was critically acclaimed, it sold below expectations. Their Kirby spin-off, on the other hand, benefited from Kirby's greater marketability and sold much better.
- The Video Game Remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for Grezzo (as a second-party developer). While they were already known for their remakes of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask for the 3DS, their remake of Link's Awakening had the benefit of being on a more mainstream console, granting it and Grezzo much more exposure. This in turn would lead to Grezzo being allowed to make their own Zelda game with the Link's Awakening remake engine: Echoes of Wisdom.
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Eiji Aonuma, although both it and its direct sequel Majora's Mask were collaborations with other directors (particularly Yoshiaki Koizumi), and Aonuma didn't take full, sole directorial control of the series until The Wind Waker.
- Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for AlphaDream (as a second-party developer).
- Metroid Prime for Retro Studios.
- Punch-Out!! (2009) and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon for Next Level Games (as a second-party developer, who would eventually become a first-party developer).
- Xenoblade Chronicles for Monolith Soft. They originally had a small fanbase for the Xenosaga and Baten Kaitos games created under Namco, with some of its personnel also known for Chrono Cross and Xenogears created under Square Co. But it was Xenoblade, made after their move to Nintendo, that got them fully recognized in the mainstream, leading to Nintendo heavily promoting their succeeding projects.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (Sony Computer Entertainment)
- Ape Escape for SIE Japan Studio.
- Astro Bot Rescue Mission for Team Asobi.
- Crash Bandicoot for Naughty Dog.
- EverQuest for Sony Online Entertainment.
- God of War for SIE Santa Monica Studio.
- Gran Turismo for Polyphony Digital.
- Killzone for Guerilla Games.
- LittleBigPlanet for Media Molecule.
- Shadow of the Colossus for Team ICO.
- Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus for Sucker Punch Productions.
- Spyro the Dragon for Insomniac Games.
- Syphon Filter for Sony Bend Studio (originally known as Eidetic until the PlayStation 2 era).
- WipEout for Psygnosis.
Xbox Game Studios (Microsoft Studios)
- Age of Empires II for Ensemble Studios.
- Fable I for Lionhead Studios. Prior to that, Black & White (2001) was nothing more than a cult hit at best.
- Forza Horizon for Playground Games.
- Gears of War for Epic Games.
- Halo: Combat Evolved for Bungie (and for Microsoft's gaming division). Bungie did make several games before, most notably the Marathon series, but didn't achieve mainstream popularity until the release of Halo.
- Rise of Nations for Big Huge Games.
Others
Third-party developers with multiple (or region-specific) breakthroughs
- Bandai Namco:
- Pac-Man was this for Namco in the arcade era. While Galaxian was an early hit for them, it was a fairly standard Space Invaders clone,note whereas Pac-Man stood out more and gave Namco their mascot.
- Soulcalibur for Namco's team later known as Project Soul. While its predecessor Soul Edge was a modest success, it was Soulcalibur that launched the franchise in the stratosphere, and why it took the Soulcalibur name from then on.
- Tales of Symphonia for Namco's Tales Studio, the first in the series to become a major hit outside Japan.
- If Tales of Symphonia gave the series its cult following in the west, then Tales of Arise helped push the series into the mainstream.
- Camelot / Sonic! Software Planning:
- Shining Force was an early hit for the company in its years as Sonic! as a developer of games for the Sega Genesis.
- Mario Golf (mainly its Nintendo 64 version) provided the company another boost after changing its name to Camelot and developing games for Nintendo consoles.
- Cygames: Rage of Bahamut in its native Japan, and Shadowverse worldwide.
- Falcom:
- Dragon Slayer more or less created the Action RPG genre, putting them on the map.
- While The Legend of Heroes games were respected Eastern RPG titles in their own right, it would be The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC that won them critical acclaim and spun off the more well-known Kiseki/Trails series, becoming their new flagship property.
- Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana put the Ys series into mainstream, in no small part thanks to completing the series' Video Game 3D Leap.
- Hamumu Games had two at different stages in its life: Robot Wants Kitty for online Flash games, and Growtopia for mobile games.
- Idea Factory:
- Its RPG division (Compile Heart) had released numerous RPGs in the mid- to late-2000s, but Hyperdimension Neptunia, despite being a critical flop, was the first series to really catch on with audiences, and Neptune and friends have become the face of the company ever since.
- On the visual novel (Otomate) side, there's Hakuouki, which was ported to multiple platforms and spawned an Animated Adaptation that ran for three seasons, an OVA, and two films.
- Koei Tecmo Games:
- Ninja Gaiden (NES) for the Tecmo side of the company.
- Dead or Alive for Team Ninja, the most well-known studio of Tecmo after the days of the NES/Famicom.
- Nobunaga's Ambition for Koei in Japan, but the Dynasty Warriors games were this for Koei and its studio Omega Force worldwide.
- Sega had a couple of different breakthroughs in different regions:
- Hang-On, the first of their Super Scaler arcade games, was a mammoth success that cemented Sega as a force to be reckoned with in the coin-op realm.
- Alex Kidd In Miracle World became a breakout hit in Europe, Australia, and Brazil, where the Master System might even have outsold the NES.
- Sonic the Hedgehog made Sega popular in the US and was the title that was most often packaged with the Sega Genesis.
- In its native Japan, it was Virtua Fighter (1993), as it essentially launched the "3D arena fighter" genre, and its Sega Saturn port helped sell consoles there.
- Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio for years had developed the Like a Dragon series in Japan to commercial success, but its presence internationally was limited at best. Following the commercial flop of Yakuza: Dead Souls Sega started to think that the Yakuza series had failed overseas and considered no longer releasing games internationally until Sony partnered with Sega and released Yakuza 5 digitally in the west to much greater success, convincing Sega to recommit to international releases. In 2017 Yakuza 0 was released internationally on the PlayStation 4, receiving critical acclaim and smashing sales expectations, firmly establishing the series as an international franchise. Subsequent releases on the PC and Xbox One further expanded the audience for Like a Dragon and subsequent games in the series have enjoyed much greater exposure and sales internationally.
- Atlus first gained recognition within their home country of Japan with the original Persona 1. However, they had largely been ignored in the West for its first twenty years, with its flagship Shin Megami Tensei games often either getting the export shaftnote or becoming Cult Classics at best. Tellingly, the studio by the late sixth generation of consoles was on the verge of collapse
. Many in the studio were told that Persona 3 would be their last game, so then-director Katsura Hashino debated with the higher-ups to make the game more mainstream-friendly. It paid off, and the game was exported to the West and it really put Atlus on the map, with Persona 4 and subsequent Persona spinoffs practically printing money for Atlus's foreign branches. Persona 5 became not just Atlus's best-selling title to date, but brought it a level of mainstream recognition that not even 4 received.
- For the two halves of Square Enix:
- Final Fantasy I for Square. After their previous games selling poorly, Final Fantasy not only sold well but kickstarted one of the longest-running series in video games. However, Final Fantasy VII was even more of a breakthrough, since that game took the Final Fantasy franchise from popular-but-cult to international JRPG phenomenon (it was the first installment released in Europe, as the series had been virtually unknown in that territory up until that point). FFVII was also the breakthrough of character designer Tetsuya Nomura.
- Dragon Quest I for Enix, which like Final Fantasy for Square established Enix as one of the foundational developers of the Eastern RPG. However, it would be Dragon Quest III that would turn the franchise into the monster it is in Japan.
- Take-Two Interactive:
- Grand Theft Auto III for T2's Rockstar Games branch, less than two months ahead of Max Payne. They've had many modest hits before GTA 3 including its direct predecessor, Earthworm Jim 64, and the cult classic Midnight Club, but none of them have made a fraction of 3's cultural impact and making the company industry titans.
- BioShock 1 for the 2K Games branch as a developer. Prior to that, they were more known for publishing other developers' games, notably The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This was their first self-developed hit.
- Ubisoft:
- Rayman for Ubisoft's Montpellier studio (known at the time as Ubi Pictures) and Michel Ancel.
- Splinter Cell for Ubisoft's Montréal studio.
- Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle for Ubisoft Milan.
Other publishers and developers
- The .hack R1 tetralogy for CyberConnect2.
- The Arcade Archives ACA NEOGEO line for Hamster. The company had existed in profitable obscurity as a publisher of casual games and no-frills arcade ports since the late 90's, but their line of Neo Geo rereleases ended up being bigger sellers thanks to SNK's resurgence in the video game market and being near-launch titles for the popular but then game-starved Nintendo Switch. The success of ACA NEOGEO allowed Hamster to ink deals with companies like Nintendo and Bandai Namco for its Arcade Archives brand as well as give the company the financial resources necessary to purchase the entire catalogue of defunct developers like Video System, cementing Hamster as one of the big players in the retro rerelease market.
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent for Frictional Games.
- Angry Birds for Rovio Entertainment.
- Apex Legends for Respawn Entertainment. The Titanfall games it spun off from garnered favorable reviews but not very large player bases. Apex's release as a free-to-play title and its unique (at the time) team-based battle royale gameplay greatly helped its popularity.
- Batman: Arkham Asylum for Rocksteady Studios. It was also the title that helped Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment shake off the label of The Problem with Licensed Games.
- Battlefield 1942 for DICE.
- Bastion put Supergiant Games in the spotlight within the early indie game scene, but Hades put them in an even bigger spotlight that rivaled AAA titles.
- Bayonetta for PlatinumGames.
- Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies for PopCap Games.
- BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger for Aksys Gamesnote .
- Bomberman for Hudson Soft.
- Borderlands for Gearbox Software.
- Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars for Revolution Software.
- Burnout 3: Takedown for Criterion.
- Call of Juarez for Techland.
- The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for Starbreeze Studios.
- Command & Conquer for Westwood Studios.
- Commander Keen for id Software and two of its producers, John Romero and John Carmack. However, their next two entries, Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom, launched the pair and the studio into superstardom.
- Contra for Konami on home consoles, its fame owed mainly to a certain cheat code in the NES version. Castlevania was a cult hit at the time, and the franchise never became super-popular until long after Contra.
- Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled for Beenox.
- Crysis for Crytek. Far Cry 1, the studio's previous game, was also a hit, but Crysis made Crytek well-known for pushing the boundaries of PC graphical hardware.
- Dark Cloud and Professor Layton for Level-5. The former was their first successful game, but the latter is the first series they're really known for.
- Dark Souls for FromSoftware. Though its spiritual predecessor Demon's Souls was critically acclaimed, it was only a mildly cult hit that was exclusive to the PlayStation 3, while Dark Souls was Multi-Platform and able to ride the positive word-of-mouth afterwards to monstrous success.
- Dead by Daylight for Behaviour Interactive.
- Dishonored for Arkane Studios.
- Disgaea: Hour of Darkness for Nippon Ichi Software.
- Divinity: Original Sin was Larian Studios' first breakthrough. Ten years after the release of that game, the monstrous success of the long-awaited Baldur's Gate III pushed Larian into stardom the same way The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt did for CD Projekt in 2015.
- DoDonPachi for Cave.
- Dragon Ball FighterZ for Arc System Works. In terms of original IP, their next game, Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, would be this, massively outselling every previous game in the franchise within a year. Previous games were only really known to hardcore fighting game players.
- Duke Nukem 3D for 3D Realms.
- Earth Defense Force for Sandlot.
- Earthworm Jim for Shiny Entertainment.
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for Bethesda Softworks. Oblivion and Skyrim took the franchise to even greater fame afterwards.
- Fate/stay night for Type-Moon.
- Frequency and Amplitude (2003) brought Harmonix into the gaming business, but it was their first entry in the Guitar Hero franchise that made them a household name in the Rhythm Game genre.
- Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride for Halfbrick Studios.
- Genshin Impact for miHoYo.
- Gex for Crystal Dynamics.
- Goat Simulator for Coffee Stain Studios.
- Guacamelee! for Drinkbox Studios.
- Gunstar Heroes for Treasure.
- Half-Life 1 for Valve Software.
- Homeworld for Relic Entertainment.
- IL-2 Sturmovik for 1C Company.
- Just Cause 2 for Avalanche Studios.
- The King of Fighters '94 for SNK. Its popularity surpassed the games it was spun off from (Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting 1) and quickly became a recognizable franchise of its own.
- King's Quest for Sierra and Roberta Williams.
- Knights of the Old Republic for BioWare. BioWare had already enjoyed critical and commercial success with Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and MDK2, but Knights of the Old Republic blew them up and fully established them as a top tier RPG developer, as well as establishing the signature BioWare format that would be used in subsequent releases.
- Layers of Fear for Bloober Team, later boosted by Silent Hill 2 (Remake).
- League of Legends for Riot Games. For more than a decade, League was the only game Riot was known for, but its continued popularity years after its initial release allowed the company to branch out into other genres like Card Battle Game (Legends of Runeterra), auto-battler (Teamfight Tactics), and First-Person Shooter (Valorant).
- LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game for Traveller's Tales.
- Lineage for NCsoft in its native South Korea, and City of Heroes and Guild Wars overseas.
- Life is Strange for Dontnod Entertainment.
- The Longest Journey for Funcom.
- Lunar: The Silver Star for Working Designs.
- The Madden NFL series eventually became this for Electronic Arts, as it wasn't until the 2000s that the series became synonymous with football in video games.
- Magicka for Paradox Interactive. For fans of the company's more traditional grand strategy fare, Crusader Kings II also counts.
- Maniac Mansion for LucasArts and Ron Gilbert.
- MapleStory for Nexon.
- Mark of the Ninja and Don't Starve for Klei Entertainment. The former is Klei's most critically acclaimed game, and the latter is their longest-lasting IP, inspiring numerous expansions.
- Max Payne for Remedy Entertainment.
- Mega Man 2 for Capcom and Keiji Inafune on home consoles, and Street Fighter II in arcades.
- Mega Man Zero for Inti Creates, a studio created by former Capcom employees.
- Monster Manor/StreetPass Mansion for Prope. It was so successful that Prope has since become a recurring contributor for StreetPass Mii Plaza.
- Mortal Kombat (1992) for Midway Games, Ed Boon, and John Tobias. It was one of the most popular and best-selling games of the 1990s, and also one of the most controversial, directly leading to the creation of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. While Midway was earlier known for publishing several arcade games from other companies as well as overseeing the development of Ms. Pac-Man with Namco's blessing, Mortal Kombat was the first homegrown property Midway became known for.
- No One Lives Forever for Monolith Productions (not to be confused with Monolith Soft above).
- Odin Sphere for Vanillaware.
- Operation Flashpointnote for Bohemia Interactive.
- Pitfall! for Activision in the Atari 2600 era, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater in the PlayStation era. Call of Duty provided the company with yet another breakthrough.
- Pokémon Red and Blue for Game Freak. Most of the games they produced before (and some after) Pokémon have faded into obscurity, while Pokémon went on to become a global pop-culture juggernaut.
- Pong for Atari.
- Puzzle & Dragons for GungHo Online Entertainment.
- Ragnarok Online for Gravity Interactive.
- R-Type for Irem.
- The Sam & Max: Freelance Police episodic series proved to be very successful for Telltale Games, inspiring two additional seasons. A few years later, their award-winning adaptation of The Walking Dead would give them even further recognition beyond being "the LucasArts franchise reviver."
- Scribblenauts for 5th Cell.
- Serious Sam for Croteam, which before then had produced an handful of Amiga titles.
- Serious Sam 3: BFE also helped establish Devolver Digital as a publisher, along with Hotline Miami the following year.
- Shadowrun Returns for Harebrained Schemes.
- Shantae for WayForward Technologies, though the series as a whole was strictly a niche hit until going multiplatform with Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, the third entry in the series.
- Shogun: Total War for The Creative Assembly.
- Silver Dollar Games started producing XNA games on near-zero budgets which were widely derided, such as No Luca No, Learn To Eat, Don't Be Nervous Talking To Girls, and Try Not To Fart. It was highly unexpected when they released One Finger Death Punch, which established them as a serious developer.
- SMITE for Hi-Rez Studios. While games like Tribes Ascend and Global Agenda were modest successes for the company, SMITE's popularity easily eclipsed those, owing a lot to its unique take on the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre dominated by League of Legends and Dota 2.
- Sniper: Ghost Warrior for CI Games (formerly City Interactive). While not particularly well-received, the game sold very well and shifted City Interactive from publishing a large number of low-budget PC games to investing in fewer games with bigger budgets.
- Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing for Sumo Digital.
- Space Invaders for Taito Corporation.
- The Star Ocean series for tri-Ace. Since the first game wasn't released outside of Japan until its PSP remake, First Departure, the second game was the one to achieve this status in North America and Europe.
- Stellar Blade for the ShiftUp Corporation on consoles, and Goddess of Victory: NIKKE on mobile.
- SteamWorld Dig for Thunderful Games (then known as Image & Form).
- Story of Seasons for Natsume.
- Super Stardust HD for Housemarque.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge for Tribute Games.
- Tomb Raider I for Eidos Interactive.
- TrackMania Nations for Nadeo. The original TrackMania was a very limited game with simplistic graphics and was frequently found in bargain bins. TrackMania Sunrise was a huge leap ahead, adding much higher quality graphics, multiple modes, and advanced online integration, but it largely went unnoticed until Nations popularised the series.
- The Unreal series, specifically Unreal Tournament, for Epic Games.
- Until Dawn for Supermassive Games.
- Viewtiful Joe for Clover Studio.
- WarCraft: Orcs & Humans for Blizzard Entertainment.
- Warhammer: The End Times: Vermintide for Fatshark.
- WCW vs. nWo: World Tour for THQ.
- The Witcher for CD Projekt RED, though it would be The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that would make them a household name.
- Wolfenstein: The New Order for MachineGames.
- World of Tanks for Wargaming.net.
- Worms for Team17.
- The Zen Pinball/Pinball FX collection for Zen Studios.
Individual creators/producers
- Bravely Default for Tomoya Asano. He first made his name with the 3D remakes of Final Fantasy III and IV, enabling him to attempt his own Final Fantasy spin-off in The 4 Heroes of Light. But it was Bravely Default that would establish Asano as a powerhouse inside Square Enix and within the JRPG genre as a whole. The success of the Bravely Default series would lead to him becoming the head of his own development team, known as "Team Asano."
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for Koji Igarashi. Symphony singlehandedly popularized the Metroidvania genre, and dictated the direction of almost all future Castlevania games from that point on.
- Civilization for Sid Meier.
- Defender and Robotron: 2084 for Eugene Jarvis.
- Devil May Cry 1 for Hideki Kamiya.
- Drakengard may have been what got people to start noticing Yoko Taro, but it was NieR: Automata that propelled him to mainstream recognition.
- Eternal Darkness for Denis Dyack.
- Final Fantasy XIV for Naoki Yoshida.
- Five Nights at Freddy's 1 for Scott Cawthon. Cawthon had written more than 70 games prior to this, which almost no-one had ever heard of.
- Gabriel Knight for Jane Jensen.
- Killer7 for Suda51.
- The Last of Us for Neil Druckmann.
- Leisure Suit Larry for Al Lowe.
- Metal Gear Solid for Hideo Kojima.
- Ninja Gaiden (NES) for Masato Kato.
- Ninja Gaiden (2004) for Tomonobu Itagaki.
- Populous for Peter Molyneux.
- SimCity for Will Wright.
- Syberia for Benoît Sokal.
- Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac for Edmund McMillen.
- Twisted Metal for David Jaffe.
- Ultima for Richard Garriott.
- Undertale for Toby Fox. Granted, Toby is more of a musician than a game developer by trade, but Undertale's smash success would greatly increase Toby's profile, allowing him to make the sequel Deltarune and take on more high-profile projects such as contributing to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the Pokémon main games starting with Sword and Shield.
- Wasteland for Brian Fargo.
- Wing Commander for Chris Roberts.