THE MAKING OF OPERATION WOLF

FEW ARCADE GAMES WERE AS IMPOSING, AS ICONIC OR AS INFLUENTIAL AS TAITO'S HIT COIN-OP THAT REDEFINED THE LIGHTGUN GENRE. IN THIS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, THE GAME'S DIRECTOR TOSHIAKI KATO REVEALS THE UNTOLD STORY BEHIND THE MAKING OF THIS ARCADE MILESTONE

- WORDS BY MARTYN CARROLL

The noisy RAT-A-TAT-TAT of Operation Wolf's machine gun reverberated around arcade halls when the game was released in November 1987.

The worldwide success of Operation Wolf similarly reverberated around the arcade industry, triggering a wave of copycat lightgun games from Sega, SNK, Namco and more. Taito itself would license a dozen home conversions and produce three arcade sequels, beginning with Operation Thunderbolt in 1988.

But for a game that was so groundbreaking and influential on its release, Taito did not set out to create, what it later coined, “The world’s no.1 arcade game.” In fact, director Toshiaki Kato reveals that the original plans were much more conservative. In fact, director Toshiaki Kato reveals that the original plans were much more conservative. The success of Operation Wolf blew those titles away, but it reminds us that the game was just a new take on the shooting gallery games that had been making a din in arcades for decades.

Kato was well aware of the possibilities, and the practicalities of coin-op development, having joined the industry in the late-Seventies and working on both the hardware and software sides. “I joined Pacific Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Taito, right after the release of Space Invaders in 1978,” he says.

“The development department was led by Mr [Tomohiro] Nishikado, the creator of Space Invaders