Games like DEFCON

Still thinking about DEFCON and its competitive and retro tone? These games offer a similar pull for your backlog.

ICBM
A real-time strategy game of global nuclear war. Pick a continent, research your arsenal, hide your silos and decide when to strike. Build ICBMs, bombers and submarines, plan synchronized launches, and trust allies exactly as long as it suits you. Tense, quick to learn, and every match plays out differently.
Also in Co-op · Competitive, Retro, Tense
91% of 1,662 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 5$19.99
Precipice
A game of diplomacy and war in the atomic age. Safeguard your closest allies and change unfavorable regimes without giving away your long-term ambitions. Every action risks an enemy reprisal, and if nobody backs down from a standoff, we all lose.
Competitive, Tense, Replayable
81% of 291 Steam reviews are positive$7.99
First Strike
Take charge of one of twelve nuclear superpowers on a living 3D globe. Expand, research, build rockets, and try to be the last nation standing when the world goes up. Fast rounds, real tension, and a strange twist: sometimes the winning move is dismantling everything you built.
Competitive, Tense, Replayable
74% of 1,923 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 2$11.99
Terminal Conflict
Touch the world with your fingertips! Your retro terminal awaits your command, for the balance of power, in this definitive Cold War strategy game. Here you belong; assert your leadership through turn based strategic tit-for-tat, on the brink of mutually assured destruction. Don't let it slip away!
Competitive, Retro, Replayable
64% of 66 Steam reviews are positive$29.99
Kiloton
A sardonic take on nationalism and the Cold War though a minimalist and fast paced RTS. Scheme your way through a highly replayable campaign, or conduct some "diplomacy" on your "friends" in multiplayer.
Competitive, Retro, Replayable
96% of 107 Steam reviews are positive$6.99
Twilight Struggle
The Cold War, played as a board game: you and one opponent run the US or the USSR, placing influence across a world map and playing cards built from real history. Every session turns out different, and pushing a rival back one country at a time is hard to put down.
Competitive, Replayable
86% of 2,587 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 60$9.99
Maestro's Cold War 2
Addictive yet chill. An immersive Cold War sandbox. Revive the Cold War in this classic strategy game—easy to pick up, yet challenging and deep, offering endless replayability.
Competitive, Replayable
91% of 181 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 4$12.99
Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis is a real-time strategy game combined with a global turn-based tactical mode, thrusting gamers into a world ravaged by the military-political confrontation between the USA and USSR in 1962.
Competitive, Retro, Tense
75% of 244 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 3$4.99
Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm Player's Edition
You are the commander of either NATO or Soviet forces locked in battle on the ground in 1980’s Central Europe. As commander, it is your task to provide the battle plan orders to your units. You need to know your mission objectives, strength and weakness of both your forces and you enemy, lay of the land, weather, and time of day in order...
Competitive, Retro, Tense
87% of 212 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 2$9.99
War, the Game
'War, the Game' is a RTS for pc in realistic present day setting.The controls are intuitive, the game rules are simple and transparent.The game focuses on strategy and the use of ones brain to complete the scenarios.The map is a spherical version of earth. That's new.
Competitive, Replayable, Minimalist
63% of 333 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 3$6.99
Command HQ
Command HQ is a fast, simple 1990 wargame of global conquest across World Wars I through V. You run a whole superpower, grab cities for income and oil fields for supply, and push infantry, tanks, planes and ships across a zoomable world map. It is dated and beepy, and still hard to put down.
Competitive, Retro, Replayable
97% of 73 Steam reviews are positivePlayers online now: 9$6.99
1953: NATO vs Warsaw Pact
Cold War turns hot in 1953: massive hex strategy with nukes, supply, and sabotage.
Competitive, Replayable, Dark
43% of 72 Steam reviews are positive$5.99

Cheaper than DEFCON

Precipice

A game of diplomacy and war in the atomic age. Safeguard your closest allies and change unfavorable regimes without giving away your long-term…

$7.99

Kiloton

A sardonic take on nationalism and the Cold War though a minimalist and fast paced RTS.

$6.99

Twilight Struggle

Run the US or the USSR, spread influence country by country and play your cards to outmanoeuvre a rival.

$9.99

Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis is a real-time strategy game combined with a global turn-based tactical mode, thrusting gamers into a world ravaged by the…

$4.99

Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm Player's Edition

You are the commander of either NATO or Soviet forces locked in battle on the ground in 1980’s Central Europe.

$9.99

Command HQ

Command HQ is a fast, simple 1990 wargame of global conquest across World Wars I through V.

$6.99

War, the Game

'War, the Game' is a RTS for pc in realistic present day setting.The controls are intuitive, the game rules are simple and transparent.The game…

$6.99

1953: NATO vs Warsaw Pact

Cold War turns hot in 1953: massive hex strategy with nukes, supply, and sabotage.

$5.99

Arms Race - TCWE

Arms Race - TCWE is PC strategy game based on the historical conflict between the USA and the USSR

$9.99

Wargame: European Escalation

Command hundreds of Cold War units in real time, where terrain, supply and smart positioning decide who holds the line.

$9.99

AI War: Fleet Command

"You are outgunned. You are massively outnumbered. You must win." These are your orders.

$9.99

Nuclear Contingency

Nuclear Contingency is a top down action stealth game set during the height of the cold war.

$0.99

Hidden gems like DEFCON

Maestro's Cold War 2

Addictive yet chill. An immersive Cold War sandbox. Revive the Cold War in this classic strategy game—easy to pick up, yet challenging and deep…

$12.99

Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War

Master grand tactical combat as a Cold War force commander in this data-rich simulation.

$49.99

Kiloton

A sardonic take on nationalism and the Cold War though a minimalist and fast paced RTS.

$6.99

ICBM: Escalation

A grand strategy RTS about the worst day imaginable: you run a faction, race through tech eras, and decide whether conventional armies or a nuclear…

$29.99

Air Defender

Command a Cold War radar network, scramble fighters and decide in seconds which contacts are friend or foe.

$20.19

Deck & Conn

Take command of a nuclear-powered space corvette in a Cold War-flavored sci-fi campaign.

$14.99

Xenonauts 2

Scramble jets at UFOs, command ground battles turn by turn, and hold a divided world together one hard decision at a time.

$39.99

Global Protocol: New World Order

Lead any of 221 countries through a living 2026 world in this data-driven grand strategy game.

$19.99

Welcome Back, Commander

Commander, your strike team is to dive deep into the contaminated city of Sun Stone and get some answers before the mysterious deadly plague spreads .

$7.79