Arkanoid
1986 video game
Arkanoid is a 1986 block breaker video game developed and published by Taito for arcades. It was released in North America by Romstar. The game revitalized the concept established by Atari, Inc.'s successful Breakout from a decade earlier and established the model for numerous games to follow. Arkanoid was ported to many home systems, including the Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, and ZX Spectrum.
Controlling a paddle-like craft known as the Vaus, the player is tasked with clearing a formation of colorful blocks by deflecting a ball towards it without letting the ball leave the bottom edge of the playfield. Some blocks contain power-ups with various effects, such as increasing the length of the Vaus, creating several additional balls, or equipping the Vaus with cannons. Other blocks may be indestructible or require multiple hits to break.
Created by Taito designers Akira Fujita and Hiroshi Tsujino, Arkanoid was part of a contest within Taito, where two teams of designers had to implement a block breaker game and determine which was superior to the other. The 1982 film Tron served as inspiration for the game's futuristic neon aesthetic.
Early location tests for Arkanoid surpassed Taito's initial expectations.
“Arkanoid” enters the record as 1986 video game. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Arkanoid, video and game can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q91282. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986 and 1982.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arkanoid” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.