CAVE Interactive Co., Ltd. (株式会社ケイブ) is a Japanese video game company founded in 1994 by former employees of Toaplan following its bankruptcy. They are known primarily for their "bullet hell" shoot 'em ups; from 1995 up to 2013, CAVE was one of the most prolific shoot 'em up developers in the Japanese market. Alongside this, CAVE has produced a variety of other types games for arcades, home consoles, PCs, and smartphones, also dating back to 1995. "CAVE" is an acronym for "Computer Art Visual Entertainment".

History

During a stockholder meeting in August 2011, the company changed the English company name to 'CAVE Interactive Co., Ltd'. However, the foreign www.caveinteractive.com domain name had already been established on May 15, 2011. Key staff members include Tsuneki Ikeda (director and COO ) and Makoto Asada (game development department head ) who left the company in 2013. On January 24, 2014, community manager "Masa-King" announced that the Cave-World Twitter and blog were shutting down on February 28, 2014, terminating all existing English social media presence in the west. Within the Guinness World Records, CAVE holds the record for the "most prolific developer of danmaku shooters", having released 48 games in the genre since 1995 as of October 2010.

Subsidiaries

Former subsidiaries

Marketing

Games developed

Arcade games

CAVE's arcade titles have used various arcade boards over the years. Earlier titles used a CAVE-designed board based on a Motorola 68000 CPU, with later releases moving over to the PolyGame Master hardware, and then, starting with Mushihimesama, onto boards based on the Hitachi SH-3 CPU. CAVE dabbled in PC-based hardware for Deathsmiles II, but switched back to SH-3 for later titles.

Console games

On March 28, 2013 Cave released a special bundle called Cave Shooting Collection which contained all Xbox 360 titles published by them to that date (Akai Katana, Deathsmiles, Deathsmiles IIX, DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu Black Label, DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu Ver 1.5, Espgaluda II, Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets, Mushihimesama, Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5, and a download voucher for Guwange on XBLA), a disc containing all DLC for the aforementioned titles, 7 "superplay" DVDs, and a 10-disc soundtrack selection with songs from all of the included games except Guwange. This bundle was re-released as Cave Shooting Collection Complete on May 22, 2014 including DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou but not including the soundtrack collection. Not released outside Japan but release is region-free. Not released outside Japan but regular edition release is region-free. Not released outside Japan and Europe but release is region-free.

Mobile games