It was the final game to be developed and published by Atari themselves before dropping support for the platform and merging with JT Storage in a reverse takeover on July 30, 1996, and the last fighting title released for the console.

Its gameplay consists of one-on-one fights, with a main eight-button configuration, featuring special moves and the ability to customize character's movesets, as well as four different playable modes.

Fight for Life was met with negative reviews; while some praised the ability to customize the characters with stolen movesets from fighters, the slow pace and controls were widely seen as crippling flaws.

Similarly to Battle Arena Toshinden, characters can maneuver in the 3D environments by sidestepping to avoid upcoming attacks, allowing them to move around in a counter-clockwise direction while still facing their opponent.

The Specter Zone is a purgatory dimension set between heaven and hell, which is overseen by a shape-shifting being only known as the Gatekeeper, who forms a tournament for his own amusement and will bestow a second chance at life to any of the eight deceased fighters, all of which died in 1995.

[9][10][11][12] Under the helm of Yu Suzuki, he and Buchanan formed part of the original Virtua Fighter development team, with Bertrand being responsible for creating the camera and collision systems seen in the game.

[9][10][11][12][13] Bertrand would continue working along with Buchanan at Sega in further projects for almost two years before moving to the United States, where he would offer his services to both The 3DO Company and Atari Corporation, with the latter recruiting him to be part of the software development teams for the Jaguar, and becoming the sole lead programmer of Fight for Life.

[6][9][10][11] Besides the main team, the company BioVision assisted in its development process with their state-of-the-art motion capture system, which involved the filming of martial artists performing 250 moves with 25 reflective markers attached on determined parts of their bodies in order to record their movements that would allow characters to act in a realistic manner, with BioVision then converting the data into information that the Jaguar could read to display the actions, with Atari claiming that this process took place at 200 frames per second.

An anonymous former Atari employee claimed that the original producer constantly led the company's upper management into believing the game would redefine the fighting genre.

[b] The game made its first playable appearance at Atari's booth during the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in 1995, featuring improved visuals compared to the earlier version.

[9] The game was included as part of the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration compilation for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Steam, and Xbox One, marking its first re-release.

The reviewer judged Fight for Life to be an effectively next generation fighter, saying the texture-mapped polygonal characters are detailed, the animation is smooth, and the true 3D movement and defense system are innovative.

[75] In a retrospective review, Kyle Knight of Allgame also found Fight for Life's crippling flaw to be its slow controls and pace, speculating that "You could almost read a book while playing, and glance at the screen every so often to keep track of what's going on".