page_title: Killer Instinct Gold
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Killer Instinct Gold / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: A Nintendo 64 video game console shown with gray controller. This is the PNG version. Français&#160;: Une console de jeu vidéo Nintendo 64 avec une commande grise.
context_page_description: Killer Instinct Gold is a 1996 fighting video game based on the arcade game Killer Instinct 2. The game was developed by Rare and released by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 video game console. As in other series entries, players control characters who fight on a 2D plane set against a 3D background. Players press buttons to punch and kick their opponent in chains of successive hits, known as combos. Large combo successions lead to stronger attacks and brutal, stylistic finisher moves underscored by an announcer. Characters—including a gargoyle, a ninja, and a femme fatale—fight in settings such as a jungle and a spaceship. Killer Instinct Gold includes the arcade release's characters, combos, and 3D, pre-rendered environments, but excludes its full-motion video sequences and some voiceovers due to restrictions of the cartridge media format. The Gold release adds a training mode, new camera views, and improved audiovisuals.
  Rare was a prominent second-party developer for Nintendo in the 1990s, and their Killer Instinct series was produced as an exclusive partnership in response to the popularity of Mortal Kombat.
context_section_description: Killer Instinct Gold was developed by Rare during a time when the British company was becoming a prominent second-party developer and ally for Nintendo, the game's publisher. Rare modeled its Killer Instinct series on the Mortal Kombat fighting game series. As a departure from fighting game staples such as Street Fighter, both Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat championed an aggressively fast pace of gameplay and placed less emphasis on patience and mastery. The Killer Instinct series began as an arcade game (1994) and became known as "Nintendo's version of Mortal Kombat" upon its release on the company's Super NES (1995) and Game Boy (1995). The video game industry expected a sequel after the Super NES version's wide success, with over three million copies sold. Following market demand, Rare began development on a sequel for the arcade. They had a Super NES version in development, but transitioned to the newer Nintendo 64 after the console's announcement. The Killer Instinct development team split itself between the arcade version and the Nintendo 64 release that would become Killer Instinct Gold. The latter began work as soon as Rare received its Nintendo 64 development kit.
  The seven-person development team started work on the sequel with the ideas that did not fit into the original. They also incorporated feedback from Killer Instinct players. Killer Instinct 2's art, design, and programming changed continuously throughout development up until its release. Kevin Bayliss designed the characters and Chris Tilston developed the game engine with feedback from Nintendo's Ken Lobb. Rare used compression technology to fit the arcade version onto the smaller Nintendo 64 cartridge. While Killer Instinct was planned to showcase the Nintendo 64's power, the console was more limited than Rare's arcade setup, and Rare had to optimize the arcade version to run on the console. The arcade version used an animation to give the illusion of the camera panning horizontally, but the console version used static image files with less detail. Both the arcade and console versions use the same graphic engine and character roster.
  The game was originally scheduled to be among the first two launch titles for the Nintendo 64, but missed the release window. Gold released in North America on November 25, 1996, and in other countries the following year, on May 9, 1997. Its soundtrack received a compact disc release, which was rare for Western video games in the 1990s. Rare, under contract, ultimately finished its Super NES port of Killer Instinct 2, but Nintendo chose not to release it.
caption: Killer Instinct Gold was planned as a launch title for the Nintendo 64 console
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