Together, Atari and Twin Galaxies announced that they moved a competitive gaming media project into development: The 2026 World Championships.
The 2026 Atari World Championships are among us, and the event will feature five immediately recognizable titles from the company’s back catalogue. The games kick off with an open online play-in tournament that culminates in a live, in-person Grand Finals showdown. So, the stakes are pretty high for the 2026 World Championships, and so is the prestige.
Senior Executive at Twin Galaxies, Zachary Rozga, says, “Atari and Twin Galaxies are bringing the original, retro spirit and arcade energy of competitive gaming back. The World Championships model we have co-created builds a modern stage where gamers of every type can earn their place on the leaderboard, get recognized for their achievement and tell their story.” Twin Galaxies will leverage its 40-plus years of experience in competitive gaming and record authentication to ensure the online play-in tournament is a fair contest, and that while anyone can enter, only the best advance.
Notably, the last Atari World Championships occurred in 1981(according to reports and forums) and featured only one title from their catalogue: Centipede. So, while Atari has yet to announce the five titles that will be featured in the new 2026 World Championships, they may be deploying Centipede, Missile Command or Asteroids as some of the five selected titles for the competition, as all of these iconic titles have been featured in past World Championships.
Chairman and CEO of Atari, Wade Rosen, says, “Atari has a rich, fifty-plus year history that fans continue to celebrate and explore,” adding, “We are looking forward to working with Twin Galaxies to celebrate competition with our existing fans and bring new fans into our growing community.” Last week, according to Deadline, Atari signed a deal with Universal Pictures to adapt 10 of its IPs into feature films, including Asteroids, Adventure, Berzerk, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Yars’ Revenge.
This could hint at which titles might be chosen as the competition titles, but nothing has been announced for certain yet, and fans should wait until another official announcement to be certain. It’s never too early to break out the 2600 and start practicing, though.
