* BreakthroughHit: ''Fruit Ninja'' became a major success for Creator/HalfbrickStudios, the one to establish them on the gaming market and save them for possible bankruptcy.[[note]]This was the time when they were transitioning from making {{Licensed Game}}s to the original [=IPs=], which was not going well. One of their first such games, ''Rocket Racing'', was a huge flop that lost them a lot of money and Global Financial Crisis was at it's peak. Halfbrick needed to make 300,000 dollars within 12 months, and ''Fruit Ninja'' delivered just that.[[/note]]
* FollowTheLeader: The success of ''Fruit Ninja'' has inspired various clones of it, such as ''[[http://www.veggiesamurai.com/ Veggie Samurai]]''.
* InspirationForTheWork:
** Luke Muscat cited two inspirations for the concept: [[https://youtu.be/7lWL0BIHlA4 an infomercial for a set of kitchen knives]], which had a shot of a pineapple being sliced in the air, and the satisfaction of fragging in ''VideoGame/QuakeIIIArena''.
** Arcade mode was inspired by ''[[VideoGame/{{Bejeweled}} Bejeweled Blitz]]'', with its 60-second limit and Rare Gems power-ups.
* KidsMealToy: Received token sets at Arby's.
* MilestoneCelebration:
** To celebrate the fifth anniversary, the game received a huge update that added a "Festival" mode, where players could win new Golden Ember blade. Similar special in-game events were also added to many of the games supported by Creator/HalfbrickStudios at the time.
** ''Fruit Ninja 2'' had its worldwide release on the original game's 10th anniversary. Additionally, ''Fruit Ninja'' itself was overhauled and ported over to UsefulNotes/{{Unity}} engine with new graphics.
* ReferencedBy:
** ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': The "Combo Experience" achievement artwork depicts several fruit being sliced apart.
** ''Franchise/{{Dishonored}}: Rat Assassin'' is a free mobile game released to promote the first game featuring gameplay similar to ''Fruit Ninja'' but slicing rats rather than fruit.
** ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': In "Ricktional Mortpoon's Rickmas Mortcation", Morty plays with his new lightsaber while cutting various fruit.
* SleeperHit: Nobody at Halfbrick was expecting this game to become such a huge success, let alone being downloaded [[https://www.smh.com.au/technology/fruit-ninja-seo-here-20150831-gjbiuc.html more than 1 billion times]] in 5 years.
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