Spacewar! is widely recognized as one of the first digital multiplayer video games, created in 1962.
The game was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. It displayed two spaceships battling around a central star, with gravitational effects influencing movement. Players controlled thrust, rotation, and torpedoes.
Spacewar! ran on a DEC PDP-1 minicomputer, a machine whose interactive display and controls made the experiment possible. Unlike many later commercial games, it was created as a technical and creative demonstration rather than a product for arcades or homes.
It is sometimes confused with Tennis for Two, a 1958 oscilloscope demonstration, or Computer Space, the first commercially sold arcade video game. Spacewar! is especially important because it established ideas such as real-time combat, player-versus-player action, and physics-based movement.