Breakout is a 1976 Puzzle Game by Atari. Originally designed as a single-player version of Pong, it involves moving a paddle back and forth to break bricks with a ball. When all the bricks are destroyed, a second wall will appear. Destroy that and you win the game.
The game was very popular in arcades, and inspired legions of imitators. Its creators, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, were inspired to go and found their own company, Apple.
It had five official sequels. Super Breakout featured multiple paddles and balls, balls trapped above the bricks, and an advancing wall. It was an Endless Game with infinite new walls. Breakout 2000 for the Atari Jaguar was a 3D version with powerups, unbreakable bricks, and multi-hit bricks. Breakout for the IBM Personal Computer and PlayStation had a character named Bouncer in a Save the Princess plot, breaking out of a prison, then traveling to Egypt, a farm, a castle, a factory, and space. Breakout: Recharged, released on Steam, has classic mode, recharged mode (with items), and Classic Recharged mode (classic mode with items). Breakout Beyond, released in 2025, is a complete reinvention of the game where you must clear each level by breaking through the bricks to reach the goal.
A remake of the game, dubbed Neo Breakout, has made an appearance in the Atari 50 collection as one of six Reimagined games, featuring unique stages, a two player versus mode and a Level Editor. The original game and Super have also made an appearance in the collection.
The basic concept has almost become a genre unto itself, as there's literally been hundreds of unofficial sequels, clones, remakes, ripoffs, tributes, and re-releases of Breakout on every conceivable platform known to man. Grab your phone and pull up the app store and search "block breaker" and you'll get a couple dozen options.
Not to be confused with Breakout Character.
Breakout contains examples of:
- Animate Inanimate Object: The PS1 game had most of the cast consist of living paddles; there was also Coach Steel, a talking steel ball.
- Big Damn Movie: The Playstation 1/PC version might as well be a videogame movie about a paddle going through intense wall related obstacles to save his friends from the forces of evil.
- Breaking Out: The Trope Maker and namer. The Ur-Example, however, was Exidy's TV Pinball from 1975, from which Breakout is derived.
- Competitive Multiplayer: Neo Breakout features the Battle Breakout mode, where two players compete to not only clear their side in a Pong-styled playing field, but also overwhelm their opponent by triggering more bricks and shrinking their playing field until it reaches their limit point. The first player to reach 3 victories is the overall winner.
- Difficulty by Acceleration: One of the earliest examples of this trope. The game speeds up as more bricks are destroyed. Super Breakout sets the ball to maximum speed instantly if an orange or blue brick is hit.
- Dynamic Difficulty: If the ball hits the top of the playing area on Super Breakout, the paddle is cut in half.
- Embedded Precursor: The 1976 original is included as a bonus feature in both Breakout 2000 and Breakout Beyond, referred to as "Classic Mode"note in the former and "1976 Arcade Mode"note in the latter. It's also worth noting that the original game is playable from the start in 2000 whereas in Beyond, you must complete the main campaign (known in-game as "Voyage") in order to unlock it.
- Endless Game: Super Breakout, as well as the unlockable "Infinity Mode" in Breakout Beyond.
- Excuse Plot: In the Atari 2600 version, it's about a literal prison break. Super Breakout and Neo Breakout both have a plot about an astronaut, with the Atari 5200 version and the latter game expanding this plot to be about a planet surrounded by a force field. Breakout for the PC and Playstation had Bouncer rescuing Daisy.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Breakout Beyond takes the classic gameplay and literally turns it on its side, and the goal is no longer to destroy all the bricks but break through the goal with this method.
- Level Editor: Neo Breakout has this in the form of the "Create" option on the main menu, where a player can freely create their own Breakout level using all the different brick types available, alongside setting which level modifiers they want to be active in their level before playing it themselves.
- Lost in Imitation: Breakout 2000.
- Nostalgia Level: Uniquely, there's one right at the very beginning of Neo Breakout, which plays out like the original game, just with the updated controls, and has black-and-white graphics and HUD elements. Upon successful completion, the paddle breaking out of the arena causes an Art Shift that applies to the rest of the game.
- In Level 6 of the same game, the original graphic style flickers in every so often as an Ominous Visual Glitch as the blocks are cleared. Sure enough, upon successfully beating this level, the Atari 2600 version of the original game is unlocked for playing in the Atari 50 compilation.
- Pinball Scoring: Notably absent.
- Sequel Escalation: Super Breakout.
- Shout-Out: The achievements in Breakout: Recharged are all names of Pink Floyd songs, mostly from, appropriately enough, The Wall.
- Video Game 3D Leap: Breakout 2000 presented the playfield in a pseudo-3D perspective, as did the PS1/PC remake.
- A Winner Is You: The game ends with the ball bouncing around in an empty room.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Beat Batnix in the fourth game? Don't worry; there's one more level.
