Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, known in Japan as Vampire: The Night Warriors (ヴァンパイア ザ ナイト ウォーリアー, Vanpaia Za Naito Wōriā), is a 1994 fighting game developed and released by Capcom originally for the CPS II arcade hardware as the first game in the first title in the Darkstalkers series.

In later years the game was re-released on the PlayStation Network and most recently has been released as part of Capcom Fighting Collection in 2022 on various platforms.

[3][4] Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors features ten playable monsters: Demitri Maximoff, Jon Talbain, Victor von Gerdenheim, Lord Raptor, Morrigan Aensland, Anakaris, Felicia, Bishamon, Rikuo, and Sasquatch.

While Super Street Fighter II Turbo was the first game to release on CPS-II as a way to test the engine, the developers wanted to make a wholly original title with the hardware.

[7] The developers wanted to make the graphics as dynamic and expressive as possible to push the new hardware, so they turned to classic Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera animation for inspiration for the artstyle and character designs.

[5] Capcom planner Haruo Murata, who was one of the members responsible for designing the characters and the world, joined the development team at the request of Noritaka Funamizu.

[29] It received a Gold Award from the American Amusement Machine Association (AAMA) for being one of America's top nine best-selling arcade video games of 1994.

[23] GamePro gave it a positive review, saying that though it is similar to Street Fighter II, Darkstalkers is highly appealing due to its broad variety of characters, its anime-style art, and the ability to block in midair.

[31] Next Generation reviewed the arcade version of the game, and stated that "Superbly rounded out by a spooky soundtrack and plenty of high-impact background images, Dark Stalkers is a good, strong twist on old technology.

"[32] Reviewing the PlayStation version, GamePro remarked that the gameplay lacks depth and is too easily mastered, but the game is nonetheless fun, and the graphics are highly attractive.

However, he felt that given the exceptionally long development cycle, the PlayStation conversion was a major disappointment, with half the animation frames of the arcade version missing and bouts of pronounced slowdown.

"[19] IGN similarly commented that "unfortunately, Dark Stalkers [sic] pales in comparison to the bigger 3D monsters that have been released for the Play[S]tation, namely Tekken and Toshinden.

"[34] In 2013, Eurogamer's Matt Edwards stated Darkstalkers "has remained something of a cult favourite thanks to its unique style and technical innovations.