Battlezone (1980 video game)

Battlezone is a 1980 first-person shooter tank combat video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades; in Japan, it was distributed by Sega and Taito. The player controls a tank which is attacked by other tanks and missiles. Using a small radar scanner along with the terrain window, the player can locate enemies and obstacles around them in the barren landscape. Its innovative use of 3D graphics made it a huge hit, with approximately 15,000 cabinets sold.

With its use of three-dimensional vector graphics, the game is considered to be the first true 3D arcade game that has a first-person perspective, the "first big 3D success" in the video game industry, and the first successful first-person shooter video game in particular. This made it a milestone for first-person shooter games.

The game was primarily designed by Ed Rotberg, who was mainly inspired by the top-down shooter game Tank (1974). The system was based on vector hardware designed by Wendi Allen which was introduced in Lunar Lander and saw success with Asteroids. The 3D hardware which drove the program saw use in future games, including Red Baron (1981). Battlezone is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time.