Yars' Revenge is the fixed shooter Howard Scott Warshaw designed for Atari, released in 1982: born out of an assignment to port the arcade game Star Castle, it ended up becoming an entirely original creation, set in the fictional Razak solar system, where the alien Yar race battles the Qotile, the ones responsible for destroying their habitable planets. The player controls a Yar who must destroy the enemy's energy shield and finish it off with the Zorlon cannon.
It became the best-selling original title in the entire history of the Atari 2600, and its backstory, told through a comic book tucked inside the box, helped build an unusually rich mythology for what was, on its surface, a simple shooter of its era. Warshaw, the same designer, would go on to create Raiders of the Lost Ark and the infamous E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, two of the most talked-about titles in all of Atari's history.
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