Play Nuclear War Online

Nuclear War came out in 1989 as part of the MS-DOS Classic Games collection, developed by New World Computing. It was a product of its time, a darkly humorous strategy game that felt right at home on early PCs, where players could engage with Cold War anxieties through a satirical lens rather than a realistic simulation.

You control a superpower nation, represented by a cartoonish leader, and your main objective is to be the last one standing after a global exchange of nuclear weapons. The gameplay involves trading propaganda insults with opponents to sway world opinion, managing your population's morale, and allocating resources between building your arsenal and civil defense. Once the missiles start flying, you target enemy cities and missile silos on a simple map, hoping your defenses hold while theirs crumble. The pacing is quick and unforgiving; a single miscalculation can lead to total annihilation within minutes. It feels like a grim, absurd joke where the only winning move is to push the button first and laugh at the madness.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".