Yoshihisa Kishimoto, the creator of the Double Dragon and River City (Kuno-kun) franchises, has died at the age of 64.
This was confirmed by his son, Ryūbō Kishimoto, on multiple social media channels.
“This is the son of Yoshihisa Kishimoto,” he wrote on Facebook. “I am sorry to inform you that my father has passed to rest on 04/02/2026… I hope you will continue to enjoy my father’s works, including Kuno-kun. Thank you.”
In a follow-up post on Twitter/X, he continued, “I’m sorry for not being able to reply, but thank you very much for the many heartfelt memory messages. I’m truly delighted to learn that there are people around the world who have played the Kunio-kun series extensively and understand my father even more deeply than I do. Please continue to enjoy my father’s works with a smile in the future.”
Kishimoto is an industry luminary, beginning his career at Data East working on laserdisc games, and eventually joining several colleagues at Technōs. There, he became known for his work on numerous beat-em-ups over the years, especially Double Dragon and the Kunio-kun series, which was known in the West as River City. His early work was based in part on a breakup he went through during his school years, as well as Bruce Lee’s martial arts films such as Enter the Dragon. It was from this that in 1986 he created Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun, or Renegade as it was titled internationally, the first game in the River City franchise. With his team at Technōs Japan, he went on to create numerous sequels for arcades and, eventually, games for the NES, SNES, and PlayStation.
Kishimoto eventually left Technōs, citing a desire to work on something other than the same franchises over and over, as well as frustration that the studio was spending less and less money on game development. In the years since, he worked independently under the name “Plophet”, making his own original work as well as consulting on other games. His most recent work was as director on Double Dragon IV in 2017, which was published by Arc System Works after it acquired the license from Technōs, though he also collaborated and consulted on more recent River City games.
Ryūbō Kishimoto stated that a private funeral for his father would take place tomorrow.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
