Pinball Manufacturers: Heighway Pinball

Founded in 2012 by Andrew Heighway and based in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, Heighway Pinball entered the boutique manufacturing scene with a wildly ambitious, disruptive vision. Rather than building traditional, heavy wooden cabinets for every single release, the company set out to revolutionize arcade operations with modular game designs, allowing operators to easily swap out playfields, art blades, and translites while keeping the exact same cabinet.

Heighway Pinball made their official debut with Full Throttle (2015), a high-speed motorcycle racing game. Beyond proving that their swappable playfield concept actually worked, the game introduced a polarizing but undeniable technological leap: the in-playfield LCD.

Instead of forcing players to look up at the backbox to check their score, Heighway embedded a digital monitor flush into the actual playfield surface directly above the flippers. This allowed players to track their progress, watch animations, and navigate rulesets without ever taking their eyes off the silver ball.

Heighway gained massive global attention with their second title, Alien (2017). Designed by Dave Sanders and based on the terrifying sci-fi film franchise, the machine was widely hailed as a masterpiece of theme integration. Featuring a physical Xenomorph head that ate the ball, intensely dark atmospheric lighting, and incredibly deep, suspenseful gameplay, it became an instant holy grail for collectors.

Unfortunately, the ambition of the modular hardware severely outpaced the company’s manufacturing capabilities. Plagued by severe production delays, unreliable proprietary electronics, and mounting financial mismanagement, the company entered a death spiral. By early 2018, Andrew Heighway exited the company, and despite attempts by new investors to salvage operations, Heighway Pinball was completely liquidated later that year, leaving many buyers empty-handed.

However, the legendary Alien design refused to die. A few years after the collapse, a Swedish company named Pinball Brothers acquired the rights to the game. By stripping out the problematic Heighway modular technology and putting the layout into a traditional, reliable cabinet, Pinball Brothers successfully resurrected Alien and began delivering brand-new units to the public in 2021, ensuring the greatest achievement of the Heighway era would live on in the modern arcade scene.