Arika

History

Arika was founded in November 1995 and spent its first month strictly on research. 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 showed Blair, Doctrine Dark, and Shadow Geist, but the project was later cancelled. Another video in May 2016 showcased Nanase, Allen, Darun, and Skullomania as a sample test with no plans for release.

In April 2017, Fighting EX Layer was announced as an April Fools video and later confirmed as a real game in development; it is a spiritual successor to both the Street Fighter EX series and Fighting Layer, an arcade-only fighting game by Arika. Tetris: The Grand Master 4: Masters of Round was shown in development multiple times since as early as 2009 but was cancelled due to various reasons, including copyright infringements regarding emulation and fan-developed clones like Texmaster2009.

The Grand Master 2015 was announced and playtested in Japan and the United States in June 2015, though the playtest was not licensed by The Tetris Company. In late 2024, Arika officially announced Tetris: The Grandmaster 4: Absolute Eye, scheduled for March 2025. A port of Tetris the Absolute: The Grand Master 2 PLUS to the PlayStation 2 was shown in development but was not licensed and never released for unknown reasons. Arika collaborated with Bandai Namco Entertainment to co-develop Tekken 8, and this collaboration also led to it handling update patches on Tekken 7.