Nuclear Option on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Fly near-future aircraft with immersive physics on intense battlefields, facing land, air and sea threats. Wage war against AI or other players with an array of potent weapons. Wield tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, capable of annihilating anything in their path.
Nuclear Option is a early access, flight and action game
developed and published by Shockfront Studios.
Released on October 15th 2023 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 4,058 reviews of which 3,826 were positive and 232 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.1 out of 10. 😍
The game is currently priced at 17.49€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Nuclear Option into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7600K CPU or similar
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: 2GB DirectX 11 supported GPU
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 2 GB available space
- VR Support: TrackIR, HOTAS, Gamepad, Mouse and Keyboard
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
More realistic than Ace Combat. A flight model that makes your movements feel meaningful, and a detailed damage model that makes every hit count. More accessible than DCS. Almost entirely playable on gamepad (though you'll want a mouse within reach), and action that you can get into after 5 minutes of tutorials and 1 minute of flying. Less wallet-hungry than War Thunder. No microtransactions or subscriptions. Everyone is on level footing, with the only variable being your own performance. A great balance between fidelity and playability. Many controls are simplified compared to a "full" sim, but the game retains its depth in all the right places.
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Great mix between arcade Ace Combat type titles, and DCS hardcore simulators. If you like ARMA, Battlefield, Aces High, or flight simulators I think you will enjoy this. As a long time flight simmer (30 years) with experience in civilian, WWII, and modern air combat flight sims - this game is great! The controls feel good, the planes feel like their weight and speed, not overly fast but not slow at all. It has a more realistic floaty feel than riding on rails. I always wanted something like this but could never find it. DCS was too time consuming and expensive. PW, Ace Combat, and War Thunder too arcade for me, and you never feel like you're working towards something bigger when playing online. Nuclear Option is basically the best parts of some of my favorite games all wrapped into one, and its only still in early access. The freedom of an open world sandbox is my favorite type of game/sim instead of just 10 v 10 dogfight or something similar. This will run on just about any computer, the graphics are simple but not ugly. In fact, sometimes it blows me away how good it looks and how high my FPS is. Flying through the cities is a blast, everything is destructible including skyscrapers, blown up tanks and buildings sit there smoldering on fire for the whole game, explosions and missile trails look excellent compared to many other titles. This is definitely a gameplay over graphics title which means you will have a blast AND have high FPS with it still looking VERY good. The damage model is one of the best I've ever seen. It's hard to explain but you'll know what I mean when you see it. Planes are made of various different parts that can break independently of each other. It has the gameplay and open world MMO arena of Air Warrior and Aces High but with modern aircraft. It has the mission editing sandbox and co-op play of the ARMA series, day/night cycle and weather engine of Flight Simulator, the simple map and options of SEAL TEAM, the AI/offline dynamic campaign and open world sandbox mode of older Battlefields like 2142 (not 2042) where you fight to capture objectives and are able to respawn at different bases in one massive war, just offline. There is so much freedom and ability to do just about whatever you want modern combat wise. What's nice is you are able to do this offline, co-op with a friend, or online with dozens of people. You can have 20+ people join the fray and still have dozens of AI pilots, ground forces, convoys, bombers, etc. You can share custom made missions online to the public or with friends. You can take current missions and modify them however you want. I was actually very surprised at the amount of options there are, and the easy UI. If you like hitting ground targets from all different aircraft with different bombs and missiles, from different altitudes at varying distances you will love this. If you enjoy the feeling of being a pilot in a much larger operation, and contributing to it (on or offline) you will enjoy this. If you love WWII sims but wanted a modern-focused similar title, this is it. If you like realistic dogfighting, not twisty turning arcade super close-range with 300 missiles like Ace Combat, then you will love this. Even though there are obviously times where you get into a furball at super close range and are using your guns, its just less common (which is more realistic). I like the hunt, the time between takeoff and target acquisition, positioning, choosing which way to go after targets, and the suspense knowing something could just pop off at any minute. All without having to know 400 different buttons and switches. Lots of choices need to be made here. What altitude, direction, speed, how far to flank, dodging both heat seeking and infrared missiles. Using jammers, radar pods, lasers, and other types of electronic warfare. The datalink system uploads enemy positions to all pilots in theater and is even more accurate if someone is flying AWACS up in the air. You really have everything here. Airbases, aircraft carriers, missile destroyers, cruisers, fortified targets, buildings, munitions, fuel storage, headquarter buildings, underground targets, SAM's, Radar installations, AAA, tank convoys, fuel trucks, MRAPS. You've got everything at your disposal from sidewinder-type missiles, to long-range, ballistic missiles, satellite-guided, radar guided, laser guided, dumb bombs, bunker busters (GPO), thermobaric, gliding cruise missiles, anti-radiation missiles, anti-ship missiles, A-10 BRRTTT, rockets, stealth planes, and even NUCLEAR F`NG BOMBS! You can do a sortie just intercepting enemy missiles and blowing them out of the sky if you wanted to. Single player missions can be set to respawn if you die so you have a few attempts at it. There is no story or scripted linear campaign that starts you off in the air, shows cut scenes, and the outcomes are basically predetermined, like every other game and AAA title out there now. This is way better. You start at the hanger, taxi, and takeoff on the runway. You decide what you are going to do. This is a large war with different battles occurring simultaneously, various sorties, takeoffs and landings constantly going on, rearming, refueling, ships firing at land and planes, planes trying to kill each other and ground targets, surface-to-air missile systems and radar installations, and choppers trying to fly ground units into the destroyed bases so you can capture them. Be smart about what to take out first. Radar stations, SAM sites, Linebackers, and all AA-type targets. Then start working on the ground forces and base installations. Blow the infrastructure to prevent tank convoys from crossing the bridge into your base. Destroy strategic targets, sink ships, etc. If it has to do with modern air combat, you will find it here without reading plane manuals and spending ten minutes for startup. But you also won't feel like you're playing PlayStation fighter pilot game that gets boring in 10 seconds or War Thunder arcade deathmatch. ------------------ Notes: *VR is in progress, I currently use TrackIR but some players use no tracking and the mouse. *Opening the map and left clicking on targets ahead of time is easier than waiting until you are close enough to use the PIPPER to select them. *On missions, click customize before you start and check the 'Allow Respawn' checkbox so you can really get a feel for the game. *Do the tutorials, they are short but are necessary. Especially for dodging radar-guided bombs and jamming. *Remember this is early access but in many ways feels like a finished title. I can't wait to see what the future holds for this game. Just keep adding more maps, planes, and weapons. I don't think the gameplay needs any work.
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TL;DR: Just about the best non-VR, sim-lite air combat game out. Caveat that it is much more like VTOL VR and Tiny Combat Arena than War Thunder or DCS. 9.5/10 In-depth: Nuclear Option is a product of a genre that mostly died out in the early 2000s and is more or less at the tip of the spear with a few other contemporaries like Tiny Combat Arena, VTOL VR, and Helicopter Gunship DEX. This game is commonly described in reviews as an alternative to War Thunder and DCS, which I find a little misleading: First off, NO is exclusively played in-cockpit. There are external views, but these do not provide data overlays conducive to gameplay in the way that War Thunder does. However, it is intentionally accessible, with a detailed flight model for all vehicles that is realistic without needing a half-hour to cold start. You’re off the ground within minutes (seconds in helos!), and sorties are very easy to play through. Secondly, NO approaches air combat from a MUCH wider spectrum than WT or DCS, which is why I say the best comparison is to VVR. War Thunder is exclusively combat-focused, and on the air side has gravitated very heavily toward dogfights. DCS is a study sim that mainly focuses on combat, with some logistical elements, but is also more oriented around going kinetic. Meanwhile, NO is constantly expanding, and is at a point that there is an aircraft for just about any role or playstyle in the current mission structure. That’s a huge distinction that the game currently has, since no other game of this type has touched things like COIN and recon (Cricket), gunships (Tarantula), in-depth logistics (Tarantula/Ibis), or providing AWACS support (Medusa). Every vehicle is multirole to a degree, with loadouts and personal preference dictating the mission regime of a given aircraft. You can use a Medusa as an AWACS, dedicated e-war platform, SEAD, or, if you want, all three at once. An elephant in the room is the use of nuclear weapons, which completely shifts the tone and pace of gameplay when authorized. Nothing else currently approaches nuclear warfare like NO does, which really adds a dimension to both tactical and strategic gameplay. Graphics and sound design are fantastic, and the soundtrack is top of its class. The soundtrack has a song specific to each aircraft, which really helps give each one its own “personality.” For example, the Cricket’s has an engaging, almost army action movie cadence, while the Tarantula’s is deep and lumbering, just like the aircraft itself. The songs are mainly event- and location-based, but dynamic music is on the horizon. Is the game perfect? On its face, no, and certainly not while in early access. Optimization is the biggest issue: singleplayer can run smooth as butter, but multiplayer factors in each individual client, which can make even dedicated servers with only a handful of players run at 15-25fps. Nuclear detonations are especially onerous and can crash your machine if enough go off at once. The rank system can also be frustrating when running as originally designed. The Cricket is currently the only Rank 0 aircraft, which disincentivizes taking on other roles (beyond blowing up small vehicle columns) until you get enough points or shell out the money for higher rank vehicles. That said, for a game that costs half that of VVR and a literal fraction of the kinds of money you can throw at War Thunder or DCS, it’s worth the price even in its current state. It has a very engaged community, a passionate dev with clear vision for the game, and a focus on balance, mechanics, and design philosophy that creates not only a fun combat flight sim but one that ties in every element of a near-future war like the one it is simulating.
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I HATE WAR THUNDER I HATE WAR THUNDER I HATE WAR THUNDER I HATE WAR THUNDER I HATE WAR THUNDER I HATE WAR THUNDER I HATE WAR THUNDER This game is very comparable to War Thunder except you dont have to deal with free-to-play ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ grinds and microtranscations. If you're attempting to escape the influence of the snail, this game will be able to fill the aeronautical hole in your heart that War Thunder orginally did, while being much more consistently fun. edit: To sum it up, Nuclear Option is able to offer the fantasy of flying high tech jet fighters that War Thunder appeals to in commericals and sponsorships, but with it actually being viable for the average person to be able to use them.
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Do you like the idea of DCS but hate needing to learn 10,000 binds to turn on your plane? Did you enjoy Ace Combat but wish it was just slightly more realistic? If so this is the game for you! A great blend of arcade action with dynamic aircraft simulation gives this a unique feel.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Nuclear Option is currently priced at 17.49€ on Steam.
Nuclear Option is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 17.49€ on Steam.
Nuclear Option received 3,826 positive votes out of a total of 4,058 achieving an impressive rating of 9.07.
😍
Nuclear Option was developed and published by Shockfront Studios.
Nuclear Option is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Nuclear Option is not playable on MacOS.
Nuclear Option is not playable on Linux.
Nuclear Option offers both single-player and multi-player modes.
Nuclear Option offers both Co-op and PvP modes.
There is a DLC available for Nuclear Option. Explore additional content available for Nuclear Option on Steam.
Nuclear Option is fully integrated with Steam Workshop. Visit Steam Workshop.
Nuclear Option does not support Steam Remote Play.
Nuclear Option is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Nuclear Option.
Data sources
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 11 March 2026 02:25 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 12 March 2026 03:10 |
| Steam price | 15 March 2026 04:49 |
| Steam reviews | 14 March 2026 21:55 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Nuclear Option, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Nuclear Option
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Nuclear Option concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Nuclear Option compatibility
Game modes
Multiplayer
Features
Online players
1,123
Developer
Shockfront Studios
Publisher
Shockfront Studios
Release
15 Oct 2023
Platforms