The game is set within a series of top-down, third-person, orthographic mazes where the object is to find and touch the designated exit in every level.
Atari later released a two-player cabinet variant in June 1986, aimed at operators who could not afford or did not have sufficient space for the four-player version. In Japan, the game was released by Namco in February 1986. Atari distributed a total of 7,848 arcade units. The arcade version of Gauntlet was released in November 1985 and was initially available only as a dedicated four-player cabinet.
It also bears striking similarities to the action-adventure maze game Time Bandit (1983). The core design of Gauntlet comes from 1983 Atari 8-bit dungeon crawl game Dandy, which resulted in a threat of legal action. It is noted as being one of the first multiplayer dungeon crawl arcade games. Gauntlet is a 1985 fantasy-themed hack-and-slash arcade game developed and released by Atari Games.
