Nuclear Option on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Fly near-future aircraft with immersive physics across dynamic battlefields, facing land, air, and sea threats. Wage war against AI or rival pilots using an array of advanced weaponry, including tactical and strategic nuclear weapons capable of annihilating anything in your 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 20.49€ 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 Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600 (or equivalent)
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti / Radeon RX 560 / Intel Arc A380
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 4 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
narcan for war thunder addicts. its like that game by gaijin entertainment except it respects your time instead of slowly sucking you into an abusive relationship. unlike my time with war thunder, where I enjoyed about 15% of my 1300 hours, I have enjoyed every second I've spent in nuclear option. this is a game made by someone who truly understands what makes air combat fun, and doesn't constantly compromise that to try and trick you into gambling. an ideal blend of ace combat and DCS, every plane nerd even the slightest bit interested in modern combat flight sims owes it to themselves to try nuclear option.
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Want to fly planes but DCS is too complicated and Ace Combat is too simple? Nuclear option occupies the middle ground pretty well. The weapons system is simple, lock on and press the button. The planes have a some weight and mechanic to them, its not perfect but its pretty good. You're just another guy on the battle field, enemies are dangerous and you are not the hero. Headlooking works great, graphics are meh up close but when you're up in the sky the game is beautiful. Information is easily conveyed with noises and visuals. The game has tutorials that explain everything nicely. Would definitely recommend.
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If you want a game that makes you FEEL like a combat pilot without the need to watch 20 hours of tutorials, this is a game for you. I always wanted to play combat flight sims but the learning curve of DCS and similar games put me off. Then, I discovered this game, and since getting it I can't put it down. It is essentially a more arcade game than realistic, but it offers just enough realism in all the right places and doses. It is easy to learn but hard to master. PVE and PVP offer a healthy range of difficulty to accommodate a wide range of players. I, as a casual player, particularly enjoy playing multiplayer PVE - you get to do your own thing while working towards a common goal with other people. It is fully playable (and enjoyable!) with mouse or gamepad, but also supports HOTAS (which I did not try, but seen people configure without any issues). For a person like me - a casual player who appreciates a touch of realism but doesn't usually have a lot of free time on their hands to commit to a realistic simulator, this is the perfect game and I highly recommend it. OOTB support on Linux btw, with platinum rating on ProtonDB (Cachy, KDE, Nvidia Open, Proton)
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DCS but you dont need to read a 200 page manual. War Thunder but you dont need to grind your soul off. VTOL VR but VR is optional. Truly jack of all trades kind of game.
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(Written in March 2026) Nuclear Option fills a sweet spot that I've missed in combat flight sims since YS Flight had a burgeoning community. On a 1-10 scale of complexity, where a 1 is Ace Combat, 10 is DCS, and a 5 is Warthunder, Nuclear Option is like a 7 (and VTOL VR is something like an 8 or 9). The developers will do well to add proper tutorials for new players when the game is about to exit early access, but the key thing is that the complexity added to the game serves exclusively to improve the depth and breadth of gameplay. While there are a set of about a dozen single-player missions, they serve more as showcases for specific aircraft or gameplay mechanisms than a campaign. The game is primarily based in multiplayer, but with specific PVE or PVP modes that allows players onto either 1 or 2 different teams. PVP does suffer a little from 'Air Quake' gameplay but even then there's still plenty of NPC air, land and sea targets to go after, most of which will fight back to some degree. PVE is where I spend most of my time, as while the game doesn't have a proper campaign, a single multiplayer session, which can last anywhere from ~30 minutes to a few hours, is basically a campaign of its own. The maps come in mission types like Escalation where the map starts out heavily populated and with war breaking out with low-level aircraft, but then rapidly escalating as both sides get more money to buy higher-tier aircraft, and then things like nuclear weapons become available. On top of that however, with use of the in-game 'map' editor (doesn't let you modify terrain but rather place objects, airports and objectives) modders have done a great job of creating narrative campaigns that play out over a single multiplayer session. Command will report that there's an armed convoy of trucks carrying nuclear warheads to an airbase and if you fail to take it out, it means you then have to repel a wave of stealth bombers armed with nuclear weapons. Maybe taking out an airbase means a naval fleet spawns at the edge of the map and starts approaching. Take out a POW camp's defences and have a bunch of allied aircraft show up, supposedly piloted by the rescued aircrew. What's more, you don't have to just fly a fighter jet. You might grab a stealth bomber and make a daring bombing run, or take an AWACS / jammer aircraft and strategically protect allies from enemy SAM sites and fighters, or fly a VTOL AC-130 equivalent to wipe out convoys, or fly a helicopter with soldiers onboard to capture an airbase and turn it into your own, or fly to your own damaged airbase to drop off autonomous repair vehicles. Enemies are also varied, both in terms of enemy aircraft, but also land and sea targets. Some SAM sites launch radar-guided missiles from across the map but which can be avoided by flying low or jamming. Fly closer however and you might encounter heatseekers launched from other more plentiful SAMs. Fly even closer and you can encounter anti-air artillery firing flak or barrages of cannonfire. Ships feature all of the above but to varying degrees depending on their type. Anti-air also targets your bombs and missiles, some even employing laser weapons to defend, so sometimes you need more sophisticated and expensive weapons that dodge around as they approach, or which fly at very high speeds, or which come screaming down from the stratosphere. If you work your way up the skill curve however you can use cheaper weapons through the use of tactics that take advantage of strengths and weaknesses, like a SAM's rate of fire, or the limited detection range and reaction speed of an AA cannon, or the reliance on a ground radar to guide missiles to their target. In short, Nuclear Option is the kind of game that respects your time, allowing for ~20 minute sessions, but also providing you with replayability inherent to it's gameplay that can entertain for hours at a time. With an i7 9700K, 32GB of RAM and an RTX 3080, performance could be better, but the developers already do a fair bit (the entire game right now is only 2GB when installed) and there's a lot of NPCs and weapons in action at any given time. Still, there are plans to add VR support which I'm very keen for, but am a little wary of regarding framerate. I feel that the developers could also go make some things like EW, sensors, datalinks and stealth a little bit deeper, but they're doing a good job with balancing for gameplay, so I'm fine with things how they are. Overall, 9/10 game, can definitely recommend.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Nuclear Option is currently priced at 20.49€ on Steam.
Nuclear Option is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 20.49€ 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 | 28 May 2026 00:53 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 28 May 2026 15:37 |
| Steam price | 30 May 2026 20:48 |
| Steam reviews | 30 May 2026 15:49 |
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
1,146
Developer
Shockfront Studios
Publisher
Shockfront Studios
Release
15 Oct 2023
Platforms