The game's development was led by Yoshihisa Kishimoto, and it is a spiritual and technological successor to Technos' earlier beat 'em up, Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (1986), released outside of Japan by Taito as Renegade; Kishimoto originally envisioned it as a direct sequel and part of the Kunio-kun series, before making it a new game with a different cast and setting.

Double Dragon introduced several additions to the Kunio-kun belt scroll beat 'em up formula, such as a continuous side-scrolling world adding a sense of progression, two-player cooperative gameplay, the ability to arm oneself with an enemy's weapon after disarming them, and the use of cut scenes to give it a cinematic look and feel.

The game's title is a reference to the two-player gameplay and Bruce Lee's martial arts film Enter the Dragon (1973), which was a major inspiration behind Kunio-kun and Double Dragon, while the game's art style and setting were influenced by the Mad Max films and Fist of the North Star manga and anime series.

The player character has a repertoire of martial arts techniques which they can perform by using the joystick and three action buttons (kick, jump, and punch) individually or in combination.

Available weapons include baseball bats, whips, throwing knives, and dynamite; in addition, rocks, oil drums, and boxes can be found in certain places.

The first three levels takes place in a single long map, with the change in background music indicating the presence of a boss character.

When a boss is defeated, the remaining underlings will retreat and the player character will enter an automatic transition sequence where he will walk into the next stage.

The fourth and final stage is set inside the hideout on a separate map as the player fight their way through numerous traps until reaching the main hall where Willy awaits.

Following its release, he was asked by his seniors at Technōs Japan to create a follow-up, which they suggested should be two-player as that could earn more money in video arcades.

The NES version of Double Dragon was released for the Wii's Virtual Console service in April 2008 in Europe and North America.

Due to technical limitations of the NES that were not worked around, the game can only generate up to two enemies on-screen to confront the player and always as identical pairs.

The player begins the game with only a limited repertoire of basic attacks and earns experience points by defeating enemies, gaining the ability to use more powerful techniques at specific thresholds.

Double Dragon was only the second game that Technōs developed for the NES, and the two-player mode was reputedly omitted because of the programmers' inexperience with the hardware.

The game supports the optional FM Sound Unit sold separately for the Mark III and which is already integrated into the Japanese Master System models.

In 1990, Technōs Japan produced a Game Boy version of Double Dragon, which was also released in North America and Europe by Tradewest.

In addition, home computer versions of the game were released for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and PC compatibles.

[20] Only two weapons (the whip and baseball bat) are available and backgrounds are static; the player cannot climb or jump on or interact with them, and the battle with the final boss at the end is absent.

The game also featured a visible gap between the characters' upper and lower bodies due to a poorly coded sprite multiplexer routine; the instruction manual included an apology message from the programming team for this visual artifact.

In contrast, it had a number of deficiencies (especially in sound quality) because "Ballistic" were forced to use a small 512 Kilobyte (4 Megabit) cartridge ROM for cost reasons.

It employs brand new artwork and sprites, Bluetooth multiplayer connectivity, online score ranking, and a host of other new and unique features, new to the franchise.

[67] In Japan, Game Machine listed Double Dragon on their July 1, 1987 issue as being the most-successful table arcade cabinet of the month.

[76] Toys "R" Us reported that the NES version of Double Dragon sold out in its first two weeks on sale in the United States,[1] becoming America's top-selling game by July 1988.

[77] The NES version sold 100,000 copies within 30 days of release in the United States, where it drew controversy concerning video game violence.

In the August 1987 issue of Commodore User, Ferdy Hamilton gave it ratings of 9 for graphics, 7 for sound, 9 for toughness, 10 for endurance, and 9 for value, with an overall score of 9 out of 10.

[44] In the July 1987 issue of Computer and Video Games, Clare Edgeley described the "sordid street fights" as "great fun when you've got the guts" and "if you manage to get hang of the controls".

[32] In the November 1987 issue of Your Sinclair, reviewer Peter Shaw stated that if "you liked Taito's Renegade, you'll jest lurve Double Dragon", describing it as "a streetfighting beat 'em up, but much nastier", with sprites "much bigger than the ones in Renegade, which adds to the realism", and "gruesome sound effects", concluding that it is "great stuff, and really good value, even for 30p a throw".

wrote that the Commodore 64 version added a two-player mode, but lacked some arcade features such as moving objects, climbing most ladders, and detailed animation.

[89] Double Dragon ushered in a "Golden Age" for the beat 'em up genre that took it to new heights with its detailed set of martial arts attacks and its two-player cooperative gameplay.

Another game developed by WayForward Technologies, Double Dragon Neon, was released in 2012 for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

A soundtrack titled Original Sound of Double Dragon (オリジナル・サウンド・オブ・ダブルドラゴン, Orijinaru Saundo obu Daburu Doragon) was released in Japan by Apollon and composed by Kazunaka Yamane, on February 21, 1988.