Developer and creator of Konami code has passed away

Japanese developer Kazuhisa Hashimoto has died aged 61. He has worked at Konami since 1981 and is the creator of one of the most famous cheat codes used in numerous games: up up, down down, left right, left right, b, a.

Konami confirms death from the cheat code creator on Twitter. The button combination devised by Hashimoto first appeared in 1986 in the NES port of arcade game Gradius. He added the code during the development phase so that he could finish the difficult game himself. The plan was to remove the code from the final version, but that didn’t happen.

The general public was introduced to the Konami code two years later when it appeared in NES game Contra. Players in that game get thirty extra lives if they press the button combination to start the game. Over the past thirty years, the code has been used in many other games, not just Konami’s.

For example, it is possible to unlock a higher difficulty in BioShock Infinite by entering the code. The Konami code is also often used as an easter egg. For example, the soundtrack of Anthem changes subtly when entering the code and in Borderlands 2 players get a menu option that does nothing at all. A new generation of gamers were recently introduced to the Konami code in Fortnite. At the start of the second season last year, the key combination gave access to a Space Invaders-esque minigame.