Breakout
Breakout is a 1976 action video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades; in Japan, it was released by Namco. The game was designed by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow and prototyped via discrete logic chips by Steve Wozniak with assistance from Steve Jobs. In the game, eight rows of bricks line the top portion of the screen, and the player's goal is to destroy the bricks by repeatedly bouncing a ball off a paddle into them. The concept was predated by Ramtek's Clean Sweep (1974), but the game's designers were influenced by Atari's own Pong (1972). The arcade version of Breakout uses a monochrome display underneath a translucent colored overlay.
Summary from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA, read 5 September 2026.
Your like matters. Every heart nudges this game's GamingPickz Score and where it ranks (a small 5% of the score), so the lists get better for everyone.
- Released
- 1976
- Developer
- Atari, Inc.
- Platforms
- 1 systems
- Critics
- Not scored
- Steam Deck
- Unknown
- Download
- Not stated
The record
| First released | 13 May 1976 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Atari, Inc. |
| Publisher | Atari, Inc. |
| Platforms | Arcade |
| Genres | action game, Breakout clone |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata Q177491, seeded 30 August 2026.
How long is Breakout? How long to beat it
Total play time for Breakout is about 5.1 hours to do everything, and around 0.3 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 0.3h | 10 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 0.8h | 1 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 5.1h | 3 |
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Where Breakout sits on the grid
The grid places every game in the catalogue on measured axes rather than on an opinion. This is where Breakout lands on each map it has the data for, with the share of the catalogue it beats on each axis.
- Year
- 22ahead of 0% of the catalogue
- Reach
- 45ahead of 84% of the catalogue
Percentiles are against the games that carry a reading on that axis, not the whole catalogue: counting a game with no figure as a zero would flatter everything that has one. How the grid works.
What readers say about Breakout
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
Loading reviews…
Did it run on your PC?
Tell other players how it ran on your machine. One tap, from your saved PC if you have one.
Get the weekly rundown
One email a week: what moved in the rankings, what launched, and what dropped in price. No more than that, and unsubscribing takes one click.
We send the weekly email and nothing else. Your address is never sold, shared or used to build a profile, and it is not readable by anyone visiting this site. See our privacy policy.
Common questions about Breakout
What platforms is Breakout on?
Breakout is available on Arcade. It first released in 1976.
Who made Breakout?
Breakout was developed by Atari, Inc. and published by Atari, Inc..
How long does it take to beat Breakout?
about 0.3 hours for the main story, 0.8 hours with the main extras, 5.1 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.