Third-party games are Atari 2600 cartridges made by companies other than Atari itself. That seems normal today, but in the late 1970s nobody outside a console maker published games for its machine. The change came from Atari’s own staff. In 1979 a group of its programmers, including David Crane, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead, left to found Activision, the first independent console game developer. Atari sued, but the case was settled by 1982, with Activision paying royalties and the idea of third-party publishing left standing. Activision also printed its designers’ names on boxes and manuals, something Atari did not do.
Other companies followed quickly. Imagic, co-founded by former Atari programmer Rob Fulop, brought out games such as Riddle of the Sphinx (1982). Toy and film companies joined in too: Parker Brothers with Tutankham, Coleco with Zaxxon, and Mattel’s M Network with BurgerTime. Starpath went further with its Supercharger add-on, which loaded games such as Communist Mutants from Space from audio cassette and raised the console’s memory from 128 bytes to over 6 KB.
Activision’s own hits remain the best-known third-party games, including David Crane’s Pitfall! (1982) and Frostbite (1983). By 1983 so many publishers had flooded shops with cartridges, of very mixed quality, that the glut is often named as one cause of that year’s video game crash.
Browse the full list below and play games from dozens of publishers right here in your browser.
Seaquest is an underwater shooter designed by Steve Cartwright and released by Activision in 1983. You command a small submarine, pick up divers, fight off sharks and enemy subs, and keep an eye on an oxygen tank that is always running down. The mix of shooting and rescuing, and the constant question of when to surface, keeps it interesting long after the first few minutes. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.
River Raid is a 1982 vertically scrolling shooter by Activision, designed and programmed by Carol Shaw. You fly a jet up an endless river, shooting tankers, helicopters, jets and bridges, and you can never let the fuel run out. It was the second best-selling Atari 2600 game of 1983 after Ms. Pac-Man. Play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.
River Raid II is Activision’s 1988 sequel to River Raid, designed by Dan Kitchen and programmed at Imagineering. You fly an F-14 from an aircraft carrier, cross the sea to a river delta, destroy an enemy bridge and then fly back and land. It keeps the fuel juggling of the original and adds altitude, so the plane now moves up and down as well as left and right. You can play it here in your browser.
Robot Tank is a first-person tank battle for the Atari 2600, designed by Alan Miller and released by Activision in 1983. You look out through the viewscreen of a remote-controlled tank, hunt enemy robot tanks with your radar, and fight on through day and night, rain, snow and fog. Its damage system, where a hit can knock out single parts of your tank, makes every battle feel different. You can play it here in your browser.
Roc ‘N Rope is Coleco’s 1984 Atari 2600 version of Konami’s 1983 arcade game Roc’n Rope. As an explorer in a prehistoric world, you climb from ledge to ledge by firing a rope upward, while dinosaurs and cavemen try to stop you. Your goal is the Golden Roc, a legendary bird waiting at the top. The rope-swinging idea later grew into Capcom’s Bionic Commando. You can play it here in your browser.
Room of Doom is a 1982 single-player shooter for the Atari 2600 from CommaVid, a small company from Aurora, Illinois, programmed by co-founder Irwin Gaines. You are trapped in a room whose walls hide gunmen behind slowly opening doors, while a monster chases you across the floor. Shoot every gunman before the clock runs out and you escape to the next room. You can play it here in your browser.
Red Sea Crossing is a 1983 Christian action game for the Atari 2600, written by independent programmer Steve Schustack and sold only by mail order under the name Inspirational Video Concepts. You guide Moses across the dry bed of the parted Red Sea, jumping and dodging past hazards one screen at a time. It is the first published console game based on a Bible story and one of the rarest 2600 cartridges. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.
Rescue Terra I is a space shooter released in 1982 by VentureVision, a small company from Grand Prairie, Texas. AtariAge credits the programming to Dan Oliver. You fly the F-711 Starwarrior through four very different waves of enemies on the way to the mining planet Terra I, and the game has an unusual two-player mode where both players share one ship. Original cartridges are extremely rare, but you can play it here in your browser.
Revenge of the Beefsteak Tomatoes is an Atari 2600 game from 20th Century Fox, programmed by John Russell and released in February 1983. It is an odd mix of shooter and building game: you steer a flying Tomato Sprayer, catch coloured bricks and drop them into place to wall in a row of angry tomato plants, while their bombs and a squadron of flying tomatoes try to stop you. You can play it here in your browser.
Quest for Quintana Roo is a treasure-hunting adventure for the Atari 2600, developed by VSS and published by Sunrise Software in the early 1980s. You play Yucatan Sam, an explorer searching an ancient temple in Mexico’s Quintana Roo for the map rocks that open its sealed vault. It asks for more thinking than most 2600 action games: you have to juggle tools, watch your air and remember where things are. You can play it here in your browser.