Killer Instinct is a fighting game developed by Rare and published by Midway and Nintendo. It was released as an arcade game in 1994. The game's plot involves an all-powerful corporation called Ultratech organizing a fighting tournament. The story was adapted in a limited comic book series published under the short-lived Acclaim Comics imprint.
Killer Instinct features several gameplay elements unique to fighting games of the time. Instead of fighting enemies in best-of-three rounds bouts, each player has two life bars. The player that depletes the other player's life bars first wins the match. The game also introduced "auto-seconds", which allows players to press a certain sequence of buttons to make characters automatically perform combos on opponents. Also featured in the game are "combo breakers"; special moves that can interrupt combos.
