Level-5 (レベルファイブ, reberufaibu) was founded in October 1998 in Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture by Akihiro Hino and his team after leaving Riverhillsoft.
The company is famous for its Professor Layton series, Inazuma Eleven series, and the Yo-kai Watch! series.
The company name is derived from "five stars = the highest quality".
The company was originally a developer (a company specializing in the development of games), mainly developing games such as Dark Cloud and Dark Cloud 2 as a subcontractor for Sony Interactive Entertainment. Yuji Horii, the creator of the Dragon Quest series, took notice of the company's development capabilities, and the company became famous for developing Dragon Quest VIII.
Starting with the Professor Layton series, the company began marketing its own brand. Most of the works under the Level-5 brand have scenarios written by Akihiro Hino, the company's president.
Although the scenarios have some rough edges, the world building and overall atmosphere of the games are good, and the hot development of Inazuma Eleven and other games have been well received.
Since the Inazuma Eleven series, many companies have adopted the cross-media marketing method of developing media such as anime and manga at the same time as they are developing their video games. This is one of the reasons why Inazuma Eleven and Yo-kai Watch! became hits and were even made into movies.
In October 2015, Level-5 Abby was established in Santa Monica, California to begin overseas expansion.
Prior to the establishment, the company did not have any overseas offices, so the Layton series and Yo-kai Watch!, which were also released overseas, were represented by Nintendo and released under the Nintendo brand.
As of October 2020, Level-5 Abby was reported to be shutting down due to low sales.
Surprisingly, as of 2021, Level- 5 it is still a privately held company, making it difficult for shareholders to talk about it.
The company used to be one of the fastest growing video game companies at the time, with hits in the Layton series and the aforementioned Inazuma Eleven series, and around the time not long ago, Yo-kai Watch! became an explosive hit.
However, the company is not good at maintaining the quality of it's hit series, and its sequels frequently make extreme changes and additions to the main characters, settings, scenarios, and systems, which often results in a loss of fans and a poor reputation.
Officials are aware of this, and the Yo-kai Watch! character modeled after the president is described as easily destroying yesterday's masterpieces and rebuilding new ones one after another.
