Asteroids is a 1979 Multidirectional Shooter arcade game by Atari.
Quick Facts
| Title | Asteroids |
| Year | 1979 |
| Manufacturer | Atari |
| Designer(s) | Lyle Rains, Ed Logg |
| Genre | Multidirectional Shooter |
| Hardware | Vector graphics on a vector monitor with a MOS 6502 processor and Atari’s QuadraScan hardware; sound came from 13 hand-wired effects rather than a dedicated audio chip. |
| Ports | 5 ports, including Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit computers, and Atari 7800 — see Ports section |
History
Asteroids arrived in arcades in November 1979, growing out of an unfinished Atari project that had featured a single indestructible rock. Designer Lyle Rains proposed a game built around blasting rocks apart, and programmer Ed Logg developed the idea further so that each broken asteroid split into smaller, faster fragments the player still had to clear. The result combined the free-floating movement of earlier space games with the escalating, must-clear-the-screen structure that had made Space Invaders a hit, giving players a simple goal wrapped in an increasingly frantic playfield.
Commercially, Asteroids became a phenomenon almost immediately. Atari sold more than 70,000 arcade cabinets, making it the company’s best-selling arcade release and displacing Space Invaders at the top of American arcades. The World Video Game Hall of Fame, which inducted Asteroids in 2024, cites that same sales figure and describes the game as among the most popular ever made, corroborating the scale of its success beyond Atari’s own numbers. The 1981 Atari 2600 conversion extended that reach into living rooms, selling over three million copies and introducing bank switching, a technique that let cartridges pack in more code than the console’s original memory limits allowed. Decades later, the Museum of Modern Art added Asteroids to its video game collection, and its wrap-around playfield and shrinking-asteroid mechanic went on to shape later Atari titles and countless other shooters.
Gameplay
Players pilot a small triangular ship that can rotate in place, thrust forward, and fire shots at asteroids and enemy saucers drifting across the screen. There is no braking control, so momentum carries the ship onward until thrust is applied in the opposite direction, forcing players to plan movement well ahead of incoming rocks. The playfield has no walls: flying off one edge of the screen brings the ship, and any asteroid, back in from the opposite side, which keeps the action contained without ever truly cornering the player. Shooting a large asteroid does not remove it outright; it splits into two smaller, faster-moving pieces that must also be destroyed, so a single rock can multiply into several new threats before the field is finally clear. Two saucers occasionally appear as more direct opponents, one firing randomly and a more accurate second type that targets the player’s ship, adding pressure beyond the asteroid field itself.
- Rotate-and-thrust ship control with screen wrap-around at every edge
- Large asteroids split into smaller, faster fragments when destroyed
- Two types of enemy saucers, one random and one that aims at the player
- Score-based survival with no fixed ending, rewarding longer runs and precise shooting
Cabinet & Hardware
Asteroids ran on vector graphics rather than the raster displays used by most contemporaries, drawing crisp line-based ships and rocks on a dedicated vector monitor powered by Atari’s QuadraScan hardware and a MOS 6502 processor. Rather than a dedicated sound chip, the cabinet used 13 separately hand-wired sound effects, an approach typical of Atari’s late-1970s vector titles and one that gave the game its distinctively sparse, mechanical audio.
Ports & Re-releases
| Platform | Year |
|---|---|
| Atari 2600 | — |
| Atari 8-bit computers | — |
| Atari 7800 | — |
| Game Boy | — |
| Game Boy Color | — |
Beyond these home releases, Asteroids has been reissued many times in Atari compilation packages over the years, keeping the original vector-style experience available on modern hardware. Check the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Game Boy, and Game Boy Color platform pages for details on those specific ports.
Where to Play Legally Today
- Official Atari compilation releases on current-generation consoles and PC
- MAME, run only with legally owned ROM dumps from a cabinet or licensed source you own
- Arcade museums and retro arcade venues that keep a working Asteroids cabinet on their floor
Collector Value
With more than 70,000 cabinets originally sold, original Asteroids uprights are relatively plentiful compared to rarer vector titles, though working examples with an undamaged vector monitor and unfaded side art still draw solid prices since vector displays are harder to repair than standard raster monitors. Bare PCBs circulate for collectors who already own a compatible cabinet shell, and the Atari 2600 cartridge, having sold in the millions, remains one of the cheapest and easiest ways to own a piece of the game’s history without taking on a full-size machine.
FAQs
Who made Asteroids?
Asteroids was designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg and released by Atari.
What year did Asteroids come out?
Asteroids came out in 1979.
What genre is Asteroids?
Asteroids is a multidirectional shooter, in which the player rotates and thrusts a ship around an open playfield while shooting asteroids and enemy saucers.
What hardware did Asteroids run on?
Asteroids ran on vector graphics hardware using a MOS 6502 processor and Atari’s QuadraScan vector-generation system, with sound produced by 13 hand-wired effects rather than a dedicated sound chip.
Has Asteroids been ported to home consoles?
Yes, Asteroids has been ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit computers, Atari 7800, Game Boy, and Game Boy Color.
See also the related Missile Command arcade page, and browse the Golden Age of Arcade Games hub for more classic shooters.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_(video_game)
- https://www.worldvideogamehalloffame.org/games/asteroids
Facts on this page last verified 2026-07-15.