Two players, controlling either tanks, biplanes, or jets, fire missiles at each other for two minutes and sixteen seconds.

Variations on the gameplay introduce elements such as invisible vehicles, missiles that ricochet off of walls, and different playing fields.

Based on Atari's 1974 arcade video game Tank, Combat was initially developed by Steve Mayer and Ron Milner.

[6] In his academic journal article Combat in Context, Nick Monfrot stated that the game was coded in assembly language by Joe Decuir, who was working on the final VCS hardware with Jay Miner.

[6] Decuir has deferred much of the credit on the game, stating that "Ron Milner and Steve Mayer conceived of what became Combat, I was an implementer [...] I worked on it mostly as a test case for the hardware".

[1] After Decuir completed his work on the game, the code was finished by Larry Wagner, the head of Atari's new VCS programming team.

[7] Decuir later proclaimed that Wagner "made the Combat display engine a lot more fun.

[15] According to Weekly Television Digest from October 17, 1977, the Atari VCS was shipped to all major market areas by August 1977.

[20] In the British publication TV Gamer from August 1983, Sonya Bradford found the controls took time to get used to and that the game "becomes a bit monotonous, which is not helped by the poor graphics.

Caufield declared Combat as "still an outstanding two-player game", finding that what it lacked in graphics it made up for in gameplay.

The article stated that despite what the publication described as poor-quality graphics, the gameplay made Combat earn its position on the list.

An incomplete prototype of the game surfaced in 1999 by former Atari Age magazine editor Steve Morgenstern.

[24][25] Combat Two was included as part of the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (2022) compilation for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Steam, and Xbox One.