Founded 1986 · Japan · Founders: Ryuichi Nishizawa,Michishito Ishizuka · First game: Wonder Boy (1986)
The studio behind Wonder Boy and Monster World, named after its two founders — "Nishi" (west) and "Ishi" (stone) — and closely tied to Sega throughout its life.
Ryuichi Nishizawa and Michishito Ishizuka founded the company in May 1986 under the name Escape. Worried that the name made them sound unreliable, they renamed it Westone, combining the meanings of their surnames: "nishi" (west) and "ishi" (stone). It became Westone Bit Entertainment in April 2000. Westone is best known for the Wonder Boy and Monster World series, which began with the arcade platformer Wonder Boy in 1986. The series grew from straightforward platforming into action role-playing, with equipment, shops and open exploration. Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (1989) for the Master System, in which a curse transforms the hero into different animals with different abilities, is the best-regarded entry, and Monster World IV (1994) brought the series to a colourful 16-bit close. Westone worked closely with Sega, which published most of its games. The company went bankrupt and entered liquidation on 1 October 2014, and the rights to its games passed to LAT Corporation. The Dragon's Trap returned in 2017 as a remake by the French studio Lizardcube.
Westone's series evolved unusually far from where it started. Wonder Boy was a simple run-and-jump arcade game; within a few years its sequels had become open action-adventures with shops, equipment and transformations — an early example of a platformer growing into what would later be called a Metroidvania.