Level-5 was established in October 1998 by Akihiro Hino and his development team at
Riverhillsoft, following the release of
OverBlood 2. Since Hino did not originally believe that his team could become an independent developer, he formed a partnership with
Sony Computer Entertainment, who would allow him to develop for its upcoming
PlayStation 2 under the condition that he set up his own company.
Yasumi Matsuno, director of
Vagrant Story,
Final Fantasy Tactics, and the
Ogre Battle series, briefly joined Level-5 in June 2011, and left the company after completing work on
Crimson Shroud for the
Nintendo 3DS. By the early 2010s, Level-5 was one of the ten largest video game companies in Japan, holding a market share of 3.2%. In October 2015, Level-5 founded a spin-off company in
Santa Monica, in cooperation with
Dentsu, called Level-5 Abby. In October 2020, it was reported that the company's North American operations, including Level-5 Abby, were shutting down due to low sales. The same month, Level 5 launched a
manga publishing platform called "Manga 5".
Roid service In 2009, Level-5 launched its Roid (Revolutionary Original Ideas Discovery) service, a mobile phone application that serves as a content delivery platform for mobile games. It is only compatible with
NTT DoCoMo's
i-mode mobile internet service in Japan. Users pay a monthly fee for access to exclusive games and social game functions. The platform debuted with six games: ''Sloan and McHale's Mystery Story
, Professor Layton and the Mansion of the Mirror of Death Remix
, Chara Jo P
, Yuuenchi wo Tsukurō Revolution
, Treasure Island
, and Elf the Dragon''. The first three were developed by Level-5, while the last three were developed by outside companies. ==List of games==