Bomberman

Bomberman
Bomberman logo
Genres	Puzzle, maze, action, party
Developers	Hudson Soft Konami Backbone Entertainment HexaDrive Produce! Pi Studios Racjin Rocket Studio Westone Red Art Studios
Publishers	Hudson Soft, Konami Activision Atlus Electro Brain Majesco Entertainment Nintendo Rising Star Games Sega Sony Computer Entertainment Ubisoft Vatical Entertainment Virgin Interactive Vivendi Universal Games
Creators	Yuji Tanaka Toshiyuki Sasagawa Shinichi Nakamoto
Artists	Shoji Mizuno Naoto Yoshimi Kozue Narai (Kozue Satoh)
Composers	Jun Chikuma Yasuhiko Fukuda Keita Hoshi Shohei Bando Hironao Yamamoto
First release	Bomb-Man July 1983
Latest release	Super Bomberman Collection February 5, 2026

Bomberman^a is a video game franchise created by Yuji Tanaka, Toshiyuki Sasagawa, and Shinichi Nakamoto while at Hudson Soft. The franchise is owned by Konami following its acquisition of Hudson Soft in 2011.¹

The franchise began with the game Bomb-Man,^b which was released in Japan on July 1983 and internationally in 1984. As of 2026, the most recent installment is Super Bomberman Collection.

The first installment in the franchise, Bomb-Man, was originally developed for the Sharp X1 by programmer Yuji Tanaka while working at Hudson Soft.^2: 27 Gameplay involves traversing a maze to defeat balloon-shaped enemies using time bombs.³ After being ported to more platforms, including the PC-88, the game was released in Japan on July 1983.^4: 71 The game was released internationally the following year with the name Eric And The Floaters; the international name was chosen to avoid any controversy in using the word "bomb".^2: 27

• Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden
• Bomberman Jetters

Most games in the Bomberman franchise largely revolve around two modes of play; single player campaigns where the player must defeat enemies and reach an exit to progress through levels, and multiplayer modes where players must attempt to eliminate each other and be the last one standing. Gameplay involves strategically placing down bombs, which explode in multiple directions after a certain amount of time, in order to destroy obstacles and kill enemies and other players. The player can pick up various power-ups, giving them benefits such as larger explosions or the ability to place more bombs down at a time. The player is killed if they touch an enemy or get caught up in a bomb's explosion, including their own, requiring players to be cautious of their own bomb placement. In addition to the main maze-based Bomberman games, some spin-off titles involve adventure, platformer, puzzle, and kart racing gameplay.