Bally Midway’s 1982 arcade game Tron contains four separate minigames.
The game was inspired by Disney’s film Tron and divides its action into four themed sections. Players control a figure or vehicle associated with the movie while completing different objectives, including battling tanks, riding light cycles, breaking through a rotating control grid, and entering the MCP’s inner area. The four sections are presented as parts of a connected campaign rather than as unrelated stand-alone games.
This variety was a major reason Tron stood out in arcades. Each section uses different movement and timing skills, so success requires more than mastering one repeating pattern. The machine also used bright neon-like visuals and distinctive sound effects to evoke the film’s computer-world setting.
The game is sometimes mistaken for Discs of Tron, a later Bally Midway arcade title focused on the film’s disc-battle sequence. Discs of Tron is a separate game. Tron’s defining structure is its rotation through four different minigames.