Breakout is one of the classic Atari games that paved the way for the video game industry. Since the game was released in the 1970s, whole generations have experienced the addiction it creates. Now, more than 40 years later, you can play the retro Atari Breakout online on your web browser for free. Sit back, click play, and allow Atari Breakout to take you back in time!

Controls

Mouse

Mouse to the left and right - move the paddle

Left-click - release the ball

Keyboard

Left and right arrow keys - move the paddle

Spacebar -release the ball

Keep the ball bouncing and destroy the bricks!

Atari Breakout game is quite easy to play. At the top of the screen, you will see rows of bricks. When the bouncing ball hits against a brick, it disappears. Your goal is to clear the gameboard of all the bricks.

The trickiest part is what happens after the ball hits a brick - it bounces back. Here is your time to come in handy with the paddle at the bottom of the screen. Move it towards the ball in order to not let it fall! The ball will use the paddle to go up again and hit the next bricks. The ball can also bounce off the sidewalls, use that to your advantage!

If you have cleared some of the bricks at the top, and the ball, instead of bricks, bounce off the top part of the gameboard, your paddle will become more narrow, making it more difficult to play. Each level you have 3 balls or "lives" before you fail the level, so be careful to not let the ball slip away!

Different game modes to challenge yourself

Single - This is the basic game mode. 8 rows of bricks await for you to destroy them with a single paddle and a single ball.

Double - In this game mode, it's the same 8 rows of bricks, but you are armored with 2 paddles above one another and 2 balls are played at the same time.

Cavity - There are 2 balls captivated in between the 8 lines of bricks. Free their way out and you will be able to play with more balls!

Progressive - The longer you play in the progressive mode, the closer the lines come to the bottom of the screen. Make sure to destroy the bricks before they block your paddle from moving!

Random - If you are feeling indecisive, the Random game mode will just pick one of the 4 game modes to play.

The story behind Atari Breakout game

The game was released in 1976 by Atari, a famous and very influential video game developer. The game was inspired by the very successful Atari game Pong, which was released just 4 years earlier. Pong, similarly to Breakthrough, involves bouncing a ball against a movable paddle and is also available on our website.

Interestingly enough, when the idea for Atari Breakout was created, they hired Steve Jobs to design a prototype for the game. He promised to finish it in a matter of 4 days. However, Jobs asked a friend of his to work together on the project, as he was not that specialized in the problem. After the job was done by both of them, there were some disagreements on how to split the reward Atari paid out for the design.

There are more games awaiting you

Atari games are a whole genre on their own, due to the distinct retro style, which is original to how the games looked back in the '70s. If you would like to dive deep into the old-school games, play other games developed by Atari. Although Atari was the first to introduce a game like Breakout, in more than 40 years' time, there have been many other game developers creating similar brick breaker games, which we have put together in a collection available on playbelline.com .

However, if you are thrilled to play exactly arcade games, on our website you can also see a whole collection dedicated to arcade games, all playable online and for free.