Arika

Arika (株式会社アリカ, Kabushiki gaisha Arika) is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. It was formed in 1995 by former Capcom employees. During the first month of its existence, the company was focused strictly on research. It was originally known as ARMtech K.K, but was later named Arika. The name of the company is the reverse of the name of the company's founder, Akira Nishitani, who along with Akira Yasuda, created Street Fighter II. Arika's first game was Street Fighter EX. It was successful and was followed up with two updates (Street Fighter EX + and EX + α), and its two sequels Street Fighter EX2 and Street Fighter EX3. In 2018, they released a spiritual successor to both Street Fighter EX and Fighting Layer (published by Namco), titled Fighting EX Layer. From 2019 to 2021, Arika collaborated with Nintendo to create the battle royale games Tetris 99, Super Mario Bros. 35, and with Bandai Namco for Pac-Man 99. Arika is also known for the Tetris: The Grand Master series, the Dr. Mario series, starting with Dr. Mario Online Rx, and the Endless Ocean series. In July 2011, a video from an Arika 3DS test project, called Fighting Sample, was released, featuring Hokuto and Kairi from the Street Fighter EX series. Further screenshots were released, showing characters Blair, Doctrine Dark and Shadow Geist, but the project was later cancelled. Later in May 2016, another video showcasing Nanase, Allen, Darun and Skullomania was released as a sample test video, with no plans for a future release. In April 2017, Fighting EX Layer, which seems to be the "evolution" of Fighting Sample was announced as a video for April Fools, and later confirmed to be actually a game in development. Fighting EX Layer is a spiritual successor to both Street Fighter EX series and Fighting Layer, an arcade-only fighting game by Arika. Tetris: The Grand Master 4: Masters of Round has been shown to be in development multiple times since as early as 2009. However, it was cancelled later on due to various reasons, including copyright infringements with regards to emulation and various fan-developed clones of TGM, most notably Texmaster2009. TGM4 has been uncancelled again recently; The Grand Master 2015 was announced and playtested in both Japan and the United States in June 2015. This playtest was not licensed by The Tetris Company. Not long after completion, a Tetris the Absolute: The Grand Master 2 PLUS port to the PlayStation 2 was shown to be in development. Due to unknown reasons, the port was not licensed and was never released. At the beginning of 2023, it was announced that Arika collaborates with Bandai Namco Entertainment to co-develop on upcoming Tekken 8, including on handling update patch(es) of Tekken 7.