RELATED: The Best Games In Each Major Genre (According To Metacritic)

If practice really does make perfect then these developers can’t be too far off, as each has spent decades working on one particular genre of games. Ranging from FPS phenoms to RPG royalty, the industry owes an awful lot to these genre-defining studios.

Arc System Works (Fighting Games)

There are plenty of video game studios that specialize in fighting games, with NetherRealm and SNK being two of the more notable examples. However, there aren’t many who are able to go toe-to-toe with developer and publisher Arc System Works when it comes to making fighting games, both in terms of quality and sheer quantity.

Though best known for its Guilty Gear and BlazBlue franchises, Arc also develops licensed titles for some of the biggest IPs around, including Dragon Ball and Persona. The Japanese company now owns the rights to the classic beat ’em up series Double Dragon too, having ported the original to the Master System way back in 1986.

Square Enix (Role-Playing Games)

Few video game developers are as synonymous with one particular genre as Square Enix is with RPGs. Even before the two companies merged way back in 2003, Square and Enix were bonafide role-playing game royalty, and not much has changed in the two decades or so since.

RELATED: Every Final Fantasy Protagonist, Ranked

In Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, Square Enix holds the rights to two of the biggest and most influential JRPG franchises of all time. Its RPG portfolio is actually an incredibly diverse one though, with the likes of Chrono Trigger, Live a Live, and Octopath Traveller all having come courtesy of the Japanese giant.

Rockstar Games (Open-World Sandbox Games)

Yu Suzuki’s Shenmue may have been the first big-budget open-world game to hit home consoles, but Grand Theft Auto 3 wasn’t too far behind. Since its release, the game’s developer Rockstar has become the undisputed king of open-world gaming, having helped to both popularize and define the genre with a steady stream of groundbreaking titles.

The GTA series is undoubtedly the studio’s golden goose having generated billions of dollars in revenue and inspired its own sub-genre of video games, but it’s far from Rockstar’s only excursion into the open-world genre. The Red Dead games, and, to a lesser extent Bully and L.A. Noire, have all pushed boundaries, while also proving that Rockstar is more than just a one-trick pony.

id Software (First-Person Shooters)

When it comes to developers who specialize in a single type of video game, id Software is one of the more noteworthy examples. Since its foundation back in the early nineties, the developer has worked almost exclusively on creating high-quality FPS games, with many considering the studio’s debut title Wolfenstein to be the very first game to ever grace the genre.

RELATED: The Hardest FPS Games Ever Made, Ranked

Despite id no longer working directly on the Wolfenstein series, it’s still arguably the biggest name in FPS gaming thanks to a few of the studio’s other big IPs. The team over at id continues to pump out Doom and Quake games on a fairly regular basis, with the former being some of the most popular first-person shooters in the modern age.

FromSoftware (Soulslike Games)

FromSoftware has been around since the late eighties, but although its Armored Core series was far from a failure, it wasn’t until 2011 and the release of Dark Souls that the studio really became a household name. Since then, the Dark Souls series has inspired countless other titles, not to mention an entirely new genre of video games.

As one might expect, nobody makes soulslikes quite like the developers of Dark Souls, as evidenced by the immense success of Bloodborne and Elden Ring. The latter, in particular, has proven to be incredibly popular with both players and critics, with the game coming out on top in four cattegories at The Game Awards 2022, including the coveted Game of the Year award.

Codemasters (Racing Games)

There have been a lot of great racing game franchises over the years, from Gran Turismo to Need For Speed. However, not many developers can claim to have had a hand in quite as many successful racing game series as Codemasters, with the British developer having worked on the F1, Grid, and Dirt IPs to name just a few.

It’s worth noting that Codemasters has developed games in a wide variety of genres, including platformers, action-adventure games, and even an MMORPG. As time has passed though, it’s become clear that racing games are the studio’s biggest strength, which is perhaps why EA acquired the developer and its Cheshire subsidiary to work on Need For Speed games in early 2021.

MORE: The Best Racing Games Ever Made (According To Metacritic)