The Humble Origins Of The Games You Love

Many people play games that have rich histories and just have no idea. Sometimes games start out as something completely unlike the final design or simply a mod to a completely different game. Aside from it all, competitive games get this treatment the most. We’ve done the research for you and have the short versions about five famous competitive games and how they came to be.

Super Smash Bros. Franchise

Super Smash Bros. started its life as a completely different fighting game called “Dragon King: The Fighting Game”. Developed as a prototype idea by Masahiro Sakurai and Satoru Iwata, it was just meant to be a side project originally from HAL Laboratories, which had been recently successful with their Kirby franchise and cult-hit Earthbound. Iwata approached Nintendo of Japan’s then president about making the fighters into Nintendo characters, showing off the prototype and the rest is history.

Where the game was popular for at-home fighting game enthusiasts, it wasn’t until the sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee, that the competitive crowd began to truly pick it up. The franchise originated with only the Nintendo characters, but has slowly given extra life to third party offerings, such as Mega Man, Pac-man, and even Solid Snake. Since then, we have a total of 5 very popular entries to the series, with the hopes of more on the way.

Marvel Vs. Capcom Franchise

This franchise started as a single license for X-Men. Called X-Men: Children of the Atom, which was a fighting game that focused solely on the mutants of Marvel and their villains. The initial concept was very similar to their already established Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Darkstalkers games. This led to a full Marvel license with Marvel Super Heroes, which is just a sequel to the first game, adding in other Marvel characters than just the X-Men.

The success of this game led to the initial crossover event, known as X-Men vs. Street Fighter, where Capcom brought in their prominent fighters pitted against the mutants this time. The final set piece came when Marvel vs. Capcom premiered, spawning multiple sequels on its own. The games rely on all of Marvel’s history meeting up with all of the worlds that Capcom has established over the years, including Mega Man, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, and even Dead Rising.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Counter Strike has been well known since it was released in 1999 on Windows as a mod of the original Half-Life. The mod was made by two guys, Min “Gooseman” Le and Jess “Cliffe” Cliffe (His last name was his username). In its most primitive form, it still had the DNA that the Counter-Strike series is known for today. Valve acquired the IP and released the game as a stand alone package, aptly named “Half-Life: Counter-Strike” in 2000.

After finally coming to Source engine in 2004, the game became a mainstay of competitive gamers. In 2012, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was released, giving us the popular esports title we know today. Some of the best games start live as a mod for a different game.

League of Legends and Dota 2

Speaking of game mods, we’re going for a double on this entry. Considered by many to be one of the most famous mods in history, Defense of the Ancients (Also known as DotA) was an incredibly popular custom map for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne developed by “Kyle “Eul” Sommer, which in turn was based on the even earlier scenario for StarCraft called “Aeon of Strife”. DotA Allstars became the most well-known variant of DotA, developed by custom map makers named Meian and Ragn0r. Many more updates were made since then.

That’s where things split down the middle for fans. Riot Games was formed, which partnered with Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, a main designer of DotA, and Steve “Pendragon” Mescon, the previously official support base for DotA, the game League of Legends was formed. League of Legends came out in 2009 has has become one of the most accomplished games in history, even having a genre created out of the concept (alongside other similarly made games), known as MOBA or Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas.

On the other side of the camp, “IceFrog (Real name Abdul Ismail), who was a previous caretaker and administrator for DotA Allstars, was hired by Valve Corporation to help develop a MOBA based on DotA Allstars from a different angle. Where LOL deviates from the traditional DotA style, Dota 2 emulates the original’s gameplay as closely as possible. The game started development in 2010, just after League of Legends was released, but didn’t premiere until 2013 itself.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

 So, this one gets a little convoluted in history, but PUBG is a game made from a film-based variant of a mod of a sequel to a spiritual successor of another game franchise. No, seriously.

So, ARMA 2, the sequel to ARMA: Armed Assault, was an incredibly popular game among the competitive crowd released in 2009. ARMA, in turn, was based on Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, a game developed by Bohemia Interactive as well, and later renamed ARMA: Cold War Assault. But, I digress. So, ARMA 2 had mods, one of which was a zombie based scenario called DayZ.

DayZ, itself had a variant called DayZ: Battle Royale. That’s where this history truly starts. DayZ: Battle Royale was developed by Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene, which was inspired by a 2000 film named “Battle Royale”. When DayZ went standalone, Greene worked on some variants to the ARMA 3 mod H1Z1 (another zombie based mod for the franchise). He left Sony as a consultant on that series and started working on what became known as Battlegrounds.

Hopefully this trivia helped you understand how your favorite competitive games were made a little more and bring them closer to your heart. Is there another humble origin to a game you know of that blossomed into a highly regarded franchise? Sound off in the comments and tell us!