DEFCON (stylised as DEFCOИ and sometimes subtitled Everybody Dies in the North American version and Global Thermonuclear War in the European version) is a real-time strategy game created by independent British game developer Introversion Software.

[1] In the UK it was released for retail on 15 June 2007 and for a limited period included the developer's first game Uplink.

A typical game will see civilian casualties numbering in the millions (megadeaths) while players try their hand at annihilating their opponents.

There is also an "Office" mode of play in which the game is permanently real-timed and can be minimised to run in the background of other computer activities, allowing the player to check in only when important events take place, and only for so long as it is necessary to modify the standing orders of each of the player's assets.

DEFCON is a streamlined real-time strategy game, with no unit production (except for automatic fighter regeneration), resource collection, or technology tree upgrades.

Once DEFCON 1 is reached, the game proceeds until a certain percentage (80% by default) of the total number of nuclear missiles available to all players have been launched or destroyed.

This results in arguments in the chat channels, followed by skirmishes at sea, followed by retaliation, before finally the whole alliance collapses and everyone starts nuking the hell out of each other.

The score is determined not by the enemy population killed, but by which territory has the highest percentage of survivors at the end of the game.

While the game continues to run in the background, a system tray icon will notify the gamer of certain events as they occur.

[3] 1UP.com said, "This just may be the finest piece of 'budgetware' ever produced, with every bit as much to offer strategywise as RTS games three times its cost," praising the "elementary" interface and calling the strategic depth "enormous."