Gauntlet

Four players, one dungeon, and never quite enough food.

Atari Games' Gauntlet arrived in 1985 and turned the fantasy dungeon crawl into a fast arcade experience built around playing together.

Each player took a distinct role, and the maze quickly became a shared problem. One person might clear a path while another grabbed the food everyone needed. Monster generators could overwhelm the group if left alone, and even cooperation had limits when treasure or health was running short.

Gauntlet's major breakthrough was making four-player cooperative play a successful arcade attraction. Its cabinet gave everyone their own controls and coin slot, letting an entire group join the same game instead of taking turns.

That model spread quickly through arcades and helped make four-player cooperative action a major format.

Gauntlet helped make the arcade cabinet a place where a whole group could play at once.