- Classic strategy game DEFCON from Introversion Software gets a free 20th Anniversary Edition upgrade - 30 September 2026
Introversion Software released a major upgrade for their 2006 classic DEFCON, a free 20th Anniversary Edition upgrade for all players. Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/09/classic-strategy-game-defcon-from-introversion-software-gets-a-free-20th-anniversary-edition-upgrade/
- 20th Anniversary Edition - 29 September 2026
Twenty years ago on this day, the 29th September 2006, Introversion Software released their third game DEFCON, and our lives were never the same again. What started as a 24 hour game jam (and love letter to WARGAMES) rapidly turned into our most successful game yet, as tens of thousands of players flooded our servers and waged global thermonuclear war upon each other day after day, year after year, racking up civilian megadeaths with inhuman abandon.In celebration of DEFCON's ongoing legacy and popularity stretching over two decades, we have today released the 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION, a brand new build for all platforms with some much needed updates. This update has come from the community - and we are proud to now make these updates official. We would like to personally thank Keiron McPhee (KezzaMcFezza in the community) for his incredible work in making this update possible. We would…
- 1.70.3 - 18 September 2026
Bug Fixes The renderer fallback now also covers the window being recreated, such as a resolution or renderer change, rather than only Defcon starting up. HDR for Metal (MacOS) and Vulkan (Windows, Linux) no longer creates corrupted and garbled screenshots. World messages such as launch alerts no longer stay on screen over the menu after you leave a game. The lobby window now appears as soon as you start a game, instead of there being a 500ms - 1 second delay. Defcon now closes straight away when you quit, instead of pausing first. Connecting to a multiplayer game no longer freezes the globe in the menu or makes the UI fade update extremely slowly. Graphics Changes Defcon now has new map graphics, updated to match the same visual style as the old graphics but higher quality. The legacy graphics can be toggled back on inside Options -> Graphics -> Map Quality if you do prefer the old look…
- Update Notes for 1.70.2 - 11 September 2026
1.70.2 Bug Fixes Fixed a crash on startup, and when pressing Apply in the Mods window, caused by mods whose gameoptions.txt leaves a blank line where a text settings default value belongs. Fixed a crash on startup for anyone with extracted main.dat files in their Defcon folder whose names differ only in capitalisation from the originals. A missing font file no longer closes the game, Defcon falls back to another font instead. Fixed a crash when connecting to a game in rare cases. Fixed a crash caused by the unit placement window and sidepanel. Screenshots with HDR enabled using the DirectX11 renderer on Windows now correctly captures the HDR output instead of the SDR output. Transitioning from fullscreen to windowed with a resolution change now grants that resolution instead of giving you maximized windowed. The MacOS green zoom button that makes the game fullscreen now writes that to p…
- Defcon Update in Beta Testing - 24 August 2026
Defcon Beta Update AnnouncementWe would like to announce that, thanks to the hard efforts of Defcon fan, volunteer and skilled developers, Keiron McPhee and Jasmin Brumme, we have a new build of Defcon to test! The core experience remains pure DEFCON, but under the hood much has changed. There is a new graphics (DirectX, Metal and Vulkan) and sound subsystem (FAudio), hundreds of performance enhancements and bug fixes, and not least, native support for 64-bit cpus. Windows, Mac and Linux builds are available. We have put up a build for testing on the "beta" branch. You can switch to it by right clicking DEFCON in your Steam Library, Properties, and then selecting the "Beta" branch from the "Game Versions and Betas" tab. Please try it out and post any issues in the Steam Forum. Please include the word 'BETA' in your topic subject. More detailed technical notes: - System requirements chan…
- Update for Mac OS X 10.13 and later. - 8 September 2024
Make Mac OS X 10.13 build the default. Should resolve "damaged and can't be opened" issue on recent Mac OS X.
- The best strategy games on PC - 6 November 2020
Looking back at it now, 2020 doesn’t feel like a banner year for strategy games, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few gems. The list below – gathered by a panel of experts and regularly updated – contains games from as recently as 12 months ago alongside classics from as far back as 28 years ago. They’re all games we think you could play and love right now. (more…)
- The best strategy games on PC - 29 January 2020
For a time it looked as though strategy games had sunk into a kind of deathly malaise, unsure which territory to claim next and which ones it should leave well and truly alone. Fast forward to 2020, though, and strategy games have never looked healthier, which is why we’ve compiled this best strategy games list of all time. Whether you want to conquer the depths of space, wage historical warfare or hulk around in big mechanical robots, there’s a strategy game for you below. (more…)
- The best strategy games on PC - 25 November 2019
You’ll ocassionally find someone on the internet sounding off about how the strategy genre is dead. If you see such a person in the future, send them this list of the best strategy games ever made. (more…)
- The 50 best strategy games on PC - 28 June 2018
An entirely objective ranking of the 50 best PC strategy games ever made, now freshened up to include everything from 2017 and 2018. From intricate, global-scale wargames to the tight thrills of guerrilla squads, the broad expanse of the genre contains something for everyone, and we’ve gathered the best of the best. The vast majority are available to buy digitally, a few are free to download and play forever. They’re all brilliant. (more…)
- All rise and no fall: how Civilization reinforces a dangerous myth - 15 March 2018
Civilization VI: Rise and Fall wants to solve a problem. That problem is perpetual growth, and it plagues many 4X games. Whether your aim is world conquest or cultural hegemony, victory in Civilization and many of its cohorts depends on domination. However peacefully you try to play, you’re often straight-jacketed into a utilitarian-psychotic view where all resources and people are just raw material to be assimilated, Borg-like, until the whole map is monochrome. But as the early excitement of exploration and expansion ebbs to late game stagnation, the fun runs out. Historically, stagnating empires tend to fragment and collapse. But in Civilization VI , like many games, you’re the star of the show and there’s nowhere to go but up. (more…)
- Spawn Point: how to get into real-time strategy - 22 September 2017
Hello. This is Spawn Point , a new not-quite-regular feature in which we take a genre, series or other facet of gaming culture, and try to convince you to give it a shot. It might be those hero shooters you ve always wanted to get into, or that terrifying space game played by thousands of jerks. We ll briefly explain the thing, followed by some ways for you to breach it. First up, it s… the real-time strategy. (more…)
- Daily Deal - DEFCON, 85% Off - 17 May 2017
Today's Deal: Save 85% on DEFCON !* Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are! *Offer ends Friday at 10AM Pacific Time
- Everybody Dies in VR - 15 February 2017
Introversion joins the VR party! After Prison Architect, our most successful game is DEFCON - a nuclear war strategy game inspired by the 80s movie War games (If you've not seen it, so yourself a favour and check it out over the weekend) DEFCON VR allows you to spectate DEFCON games in the comfort of your own virtual War Room. Join others and marvel at total global annihilation as nuclear missiles arc over the globe on their path to destruction. Have a look as Chris, Mark, and Finlay show off the glory of nuclear doom. https://youtu.be/jaepnLVWedE We're giving away a prototype on steam, but if there's enough interest we may decide to carry on and build a fully playable version of DEFCON in VR - lets us know what you think in the comments of the video.
- Everybody Dies in VR - 15 February 2017
Introversion joins the VR party! After Prison Architect, our most successful game is DEFCON - a nuclear war strategy game inspired by the 80s movie War games (If you've not seen it, so yourself a favour and check it out over the weekend) DEFCON VR allows you to spectate DEFCON games in the comfort of your own virtual War Room. Join others and marvel at total global annihilation as nuclear missiles arc over the globe on their path to destruction. Have a look as Chris, Mark, and Finlay show off the glory of nuclear doom. https://youtu.be/jaepnLVWedE We're giving away a prototype on steam, but if there's enough interest we may decide to carry on and build a fully playable version of DEFCON in VR - lets us know what you think in the comments of the video.
- Daily Deal - DEFCON, 75% off! - 6 December 2012
Today's Deal: Save 75% on DEFCON ! Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
- Midweek Madness - British Indie Bundle - 28 August 2012
Some of the best-rated indie developers from Great Britain have come together to create the Best of British Indie Bundle during this week's Midweek Madness*! This Bundle includes: * Time Gentlemen, Please! and Ben There Dan That! Double Pack ; * DEFCON ; * Eufloria ; * Gratuitious Space Battles ; * Revenge of the Titans ; * Frozen Synapse ; *Offer ends Thursday at 4PM Pacific Time
- STEAM SUMMER SALE DAY SIX - 17 July 2012
The Steam Summer Sale continues today with huge savings throughout the store! Today's Daily Deals Include: * Call of Duty: Black Ops ; * Wargame: European Escalation ; * Spec Ops: The Line ; * Stronghold 3 Gold ; * Grand Theft Auto Franchise ; * Railworks 3: Train Simulator 2012 ; * Company of Heroes Franchise ; * LIMBO ; * Indie Bundle V - featuring Defcon, Aaaaa for the Awesome, Ticket to Ride, TRAUMA, SpaceChem; Don't forget to check back for a new Community Choice vote every 8 hours and new Flash sales throughout the day! You can also grab the Steam mobile app to make sure you never miss any great deals while you're on the go! Complete information on all the savings, Flash Sales, Community Choice Votes and more may be found on www.steampowered.com .
- The Humble Introversion Bundle launches - 22 November 2011
The Humble Bundles keep on rolling, with a new 'pay what you want' indie mega-bargain arriving mere weeks after the last one wrapped up. The new Humble Introversion Bundle packs four games from English indie Introversion: hacking sim Uplink , RTS Darwinia , its multiplayer sequel Multiwinia , and Cold War 'em up Defcon . The Bundle also includes two Introversion tech demos, the procedural city generator used in Subversion and a voxel-based destructible building demo. As Subversion is on indefinite hold , it'll be nice to get a good look at some of it at least. On top of that, if you pay over the average price, you'll also score Humble Bundle veterans Aquaria and Crayon Physics Deluxe . The Bundle has already outsold Xbox Live Arcade's Darwinia+ within 41 minutes on sale, Introversion revealed on Twitter . As ever, all games come DRM-free, but you can activate them on Steam if you fancy.…
- Introversion: what happened to Subversion - 21 October 2011
Darwinia and Defcon developer Introversion stopped working on Subversion nearly a year ago, Eurogamer has discovered. Subversion resembled a collection of tech demos but "the core game itself wasn't really that great", creator Chris Delay told us. "What happened was, we were tinkering away on Subversion for ages and ages, trying to make some progress - and we did make a lot of progress on it - but we always had this worry that the core game itself wasn't really that great. There wasn't really much to do. "We had literally years of tech demos but no sort of cohesive core game. It's the core game that was missing. "Whenever we stopped and thought about it from a high-level point of view, in terms of what's the player going to be doing, where's the fun going to come from, we were drawing a bit of a blank, all the time. "We finally faced up to it," he said. Subversion, an infiltration and e…
