Gauntlet is a 1985 fantasy-themed hack-and-slash arcade game developed and released by Atari Games.^[6] It is noted as being one of the first multiplayer dungeon crawl arcade games.^[8][9] The core design of Gauntlet comes from 1983 Atari 8-bit dungeon crawl game Dandy, which resulted in a threat of legal action.^[10] It also bears striking similarities to the action-adventure maze game Time Bandit (1983).

The arcade version of Gauntlet was released in November 1985 and was initially available only as a dedicated four-player cabinet. Atari distributed a total of 7,848 arcade units.^[11] In Japan, the game was released by Namco in February 1986.^[7] Atari later released a two-player cabinet variant in June 1986, aimed at operators who could not afford or did not have sufficient space for the four-player version.^[5][12]

The game is set within a series of top-down, third-person, orthographic mazes where the object is to kill monsters, gather treasures, and find and touch the designated exit in every level. An assortment of special items can be located in each level that increase the player's character's health, unlock doors, gain more points, and give magical potions that can destroy all of the enemies on screen.^[13]

Each player controls one of four playable fantasy-based characters: Thor, a warrior; Merlin, a wizard; Thyra, a valkyrie; or Questor, an Elf. The characters are named on the cabinet artwork, but in-game they are referred only by the title of their classes. Each character has his or her own unique strengths and weaknesses. For example, the warrior is strongest in hand-to-hand combat, the wizard has the most powerful magic, the valkyrie has the best armor, and the Elf is the fastest in movement.^[14] The characters are assigned by control panel in the four-player version, whereas in the two-player version each player selects their own character at the start of the game or while joining during the middle of play.

The enemies are an assortment of fantasy-based monsters, including ghosts, grunts, demons, lobbers, sorcerers, and thieves. Each enters the level through specific generators, which can be destroyed. While there are no bosses in the game, the most dangerous enemy is Death, who can only be destroyed by using a magic potion—otherwise Death will vanish automatically after it has drained a certain amount of health from the player.^[13]

As the game progresses, higher levels of skill are needed to reach the exit, with success often depending on the willingness of the players to cooperate by sharing food and luring monsters into places where they can be engaged and slaughtered more conveniently.^[13] While contact with enemies reduces the player's health, health also slowly drains on its own, thus creating a time limit. When a character's health reaches zero, that character dies. The character can be revived in place with full health by spending a game credit—inserting a coin in the arcade—within a certain short time window after it died. This allows even the least proficient players to keep playing indefinitely, if they are willing to keep inserting coins. However, each player's final score will be divided by the amount of credits they used to play, resulting in an average.

Aside from the ability to have up to four players at once, the game is also noted for the narrator's voice, which is produced by a Texas Instruments TMS5220C speech chip.^[9][13] The TMS5220C speech was encoded by Earl Vickers.^[9] The narrator (voiced by Ernie Fosselius)^[9] frequently makes statements repeating the game's rules, including: "Shots do not hurt other players, yet", "Remember, don't shoot food", "Elf shot the food", and "Warrior needs food, badly". The narrator occasionally comments on the battle by saying, "I've not seen such bravery" or "Let's see you get out of here". When a player's life force points fall below 200, the narrator states, "Your life force is running out", "Elf needs food", or "Valkyrie is about to die".

The control panel for the four-player cabinet is wider than other standard uprights in order to accommodate four people at the same time. Each player has an eight-way joystick and two buttons: one for "fire" (ranged attack) and one for "magic". The "magic" button also starts the game. After Gauntlet's release, other games started using this design, so it was a popular conversion target for newer games after it had its run.

Originally called Dungeons,^[9] the game was conceived by Atari game designer Ed Logg. He claimed inspiration from his son's interest in the paper-based game Dungeons & Dragons and from his own interest in the 1984 four-player dungeon crawl for the Atari 8-bit family, Dandy.

The game's development spanned from 1983 to 1985, with a team being led by designers Ed Logg and Roger Zeigler. The working title became legally unavailable in April 1985,^[9] so it was renamed Gauntlet in May. Based upon some of the most elaborate hardware design in Atari's history to date, it is the company's first coin-operated game that features a voice synthesizer chip.^[15]

Another game which Gauntlet bears a striking resemblance to is Time Bandit (1983), especially its Atari ST version released in 1985, which led to claims of one possibly being a "clone" of the other. However, Time Bandit designer Harry Lafnear stated that his game was based on Konami's earlier arcade game Tutankham (1982), and that he only found out about Gauntlet after the Atari ST version was completed in late 1985. He believes neither game copied each other, but that their similarities stem from being inspired by earlier "maze shoot 'em up" titles such as Tutankham.^[16] In 2008, Retro Gamer magazine called Tutankham "an early Gauntlet".^[17]

Gauntlet was ported to MS-DOS, Apple II, Macintosh, MSX, Nintendo Entertainment System, Apple IIGS, Master System, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit family, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, and the PlayStation 1 console as part of Midway's Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 2. A X68000 version was under development by M2, before being showcased to Tengen and released as Gauntlet IV for Sega Genesis.^[21]

The NES version was developed and published by Tengen, Atari Games' consumer software publishing division, and was released in 1988, was the very first title to be developed in the United States for the NES.^[22]

The arcade original was followed by a 1986 sequel, Gauntlet II, which was followed by further sequels on home platforms, including Gauntlet: The Third Encounter, Gauntlet III: The Final Quest, and Gauntlet IV. The arcade series was revived with Gauntlet Legends in 1998, which itself saw the sequels Gauntlet Dark Legacy and Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows. The original Gauntlet arcade game is included in Midway Arcade Treasures (2003) for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows, and Midway Arcade Origins (2012) for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The game was rebooted in 2014 on home platforms as Gauntlet.