Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors Turn 30

In the early 90s, the arcade scene was at an all-time high with the arrival of Street Fighter 2 just two years ago. The market was flooded with so many fighting games that it was hard to stand out. Capcom wasn’t going to let the success they made with Street Fighter 2 go to waste, and in 1994, they released Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors which was a huge hit.

The game was developed and released by Capcom to arcades in July of 1994. the main selling point of the game was it had a horror theme around it, for example, the 10 playable characters are monsters and each stage you fight in goes with the theme as well. The game had this anime art style and it worked in its favor as the gameplay was not like Street Fighter 2 at all and while it is not deep in terms of fighting game, the game made up for it with how fun it was.

Soon after the success of Darkstalkers, Capcom went to work with making part two with the release of Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge in 1995 and Darkstalkers 3 in 1997. Sadly after Darkstalkers 3, the series went dark and hasn’t seen a new game since 1997, which is sad due to how popular the series still is to this day and Capcom dropped the ball with this one.

Even now, the game still holds up well and has a special place in the fighting game community for those who grew up playing it and for those who find it and fall in love with the game and characters. As of now, you can play all the Darkstalkers games on the Capcom Fighting Collection, which was released back in 2022. Fun fact: In Japan, the series was known as Vampire.