A common belief is that the Raiden Fighters series is part of the original Raiden series. During the first Raiden Fighters' development, it went by the tentative working title of Gun Dogs. Seibu Kaihatsu changed the name to Raiden Fighters before its release. In pre-release market tests, Seibu Kaihatsu discovered that people paid more attention to the game when it had the word Raiden in its name. Two cameo ships from Seibu Kaihatsu's popular vertical-scrolling shooter games were added to coincide with the name change. There were originally only the five standard aircraft in the first game.