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The Making of Karateka
Play the history. Go behind the scenes of Jordan Mechner's landmark game Karateka in this interactive documentary from Digital Eclipse, with archival materials, video features, and more. Experience pixel-perfect versions of this legendary game, with all-new features.
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-28.
“The Making of Karateka is a fascinating example of how video game history can be preserved without reducing it to a collection of screenshots, interviews, and old software hidden behind separate menus. Developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Digital Eclipse and Atari, this…”
— a player, Steam review · 12 hrs played“Huge recommendation for this game. If you are in the Venn Diagram of "Video Game Fan", "Documentary Fan", and "General History" fan, then this game is brilliant. All of the Gold Master Series games are worth a buy as they can give a perfect blend of the medium's exploration…”
— a player, Steam review · 7 hrs played“When I first bought this, I was expecting this to be just a game compilation of Karateka. It is not. It is so much more. This is a documentary with games as extras in it. You have access to the Apple II, C64, Atari 800, and a remastered version of the original Karateka. It…”
— a player, Steam review · 2 hrs playedAchievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-09-28.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Nominate us!
Of its many contributions to games as a medium, Karateka's cinematic approach to storytelling is probably its greatest. But don't take our word for it: Influential developers including Raph Koster (Ul
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-09-28.
| Genres | Action |
| Player tags | Action · 2D Fighter · 2D Platformer · Documentary · Singleplayer · Pixel Graphics · Cinematic · Combat · 2D · Game Development · Education · 1980s (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Steam Achievements · Full controller support · Steam Cloud · Family Sharing |
| Languages | English * , French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese * |
| Controller | Full support |
| Achievements | 19 |
| Official site | https://www.digitaleclipse.com/games/karateka |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 10 Processor: Intel i3 @ 3.0GHz or AMD equivalent. Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series, Nvidia GeForce 8800GT or greater