Publisher: Atari

Atari made the Atari 2600, which first went on sale in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System, and it also published many of the console’s games. Nine cartridges were available at launch, among them Street Racer, Surround and Video Olympics. Over the next years Atari’s programmers wrote original games and converted arcade hits, both Atari’s own, such as Missile Command, and licensed ones from companies like Taito, Namco and Williams. Sears sold many of the same games under its Tele-Games label, often with different names. The Atari name here also covers the later Atari Corporation, which kept releasing 2600 cartridges until 1990, among them Solaris, Radar Lock and Xenophobe.
This archive includes Atari’s released games as well as prototypes that never reached the shops. Some places to start:

Video Olympics (1977): 50 Pong-style games and variations for paddle controllers.
Video Chess (1979): a full chess opponent squeezed into a machine with 128 bytes of memory.
Warlords (1981): Carla Meninsky’s castle-smashing game for up to four players.
Missile Command (1981): Rob Fulop’s version of the arcade game about defending six cities.
Star Raiders (1982): first-person space combat with a galaxy map.
Solaris (1986): Doug Neubauer’s space combat and exploration game.

The full list is below, and every game on it runs in your browser.

Track & Field

Track & Field is Atari's 1984 Atari 2600 version of Konami's 1983 arcade hit. It was programmed at General Computer Corporation (GCC) by Seth Lipkin, Jacques Hugon and Allen Wells. You compete in six athletics events, from the…

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Swordquest: Waterworld

Swordquest: Waterworld is the third and last of Atari's Swordquest adventure games for the 2600, programmed by Tod Frye. Like Earthworld and Fireworld, it asks you to place magical objects in the right rooms to reveal clues that…

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Tempest

Tempest for the Atari 2600 is an unfinished prototype of Atari's 1981 arcade game by Dave Theurer. The arcade original used a colour vector screen and a spinning dial to move a claw-shaped ship around the rim of…

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Swordquest: Earthworld

Swordquest: Earthworld is the first of Atari's three Swordquest adventure games for the 2600, released in October 1982. You wander through twelve rooms named after the signs of the zodiac, carry magical objects from room to room and…

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Swordquest: Fireworld

Swordquest: Fireworld is the second of Atari's three Swordquest adventure games for the 2600, programmed by Tod Frye and released in early 1983. You explore ten rooms laid out like the Kabbalah Tree of Life, collect and drop…

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Street Racer

Street Racer is one of the nine cartridges that were on sale when the Atari 2600 launched in September 1977. Larry Kaplan programmed it, and Sears sold its own version as Speedway II. Despite the name, it is…

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Stunt Cycle

Stunt Cycle is an unreleased Atari 2600 prototype from 1980, programmed by Bob Polaro. It converts one of Atari's early dedicated home consoles, which was itself based on Atari's Stunt Cycle arcade game: you build up speed on…

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Submarine Commander

Submarine Commander is a 1982 submarine game programmed by Matthew Hubbard at Atari and sold only by Sears under its Tele-Games label. You watch through the periscope, track ships on sonar and try to sink as many as…

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Super Baseball

Super Baseball is a baseball game that Atari Corporation released for the 2600 late in the console's life; the manual is dated 1988. It is a reworked edition of Atari's earlier RealSports Baseball from 1982, with bug fixes…

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Super Breakout

Super Breakout is Atari's follow-up to Breakout, first released in arcades in 1978. The Atari 2600 version was programmed by Nick Turner and Carol Shaw and came out in October 1981, first as a Sears Tele-Games exclusive and…

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