Scorched Earth, with a plethora of weapon types and power-ups, is considered the modern archetype of its format.

In addition to conventional warheads, there is also ordnance such as napalm, wildly bouncing bombs, and earth weapons - allowing the player to dump dirt on other tanks or to remove ground from beneath them.

A tank which is covered with dirt has to shoot itself free and may get damaged in the process; one which falls from too high a level may be destroyed.

A variety of utilities, such as deflector shields, recharge batteries, and tank parachutes, make it much harder to score a kill with a single hit even with the more bizarre and advanced weapons, adding another dimension to the game's tactics.

If the player-controlled tanks are destroyed before the others, the AI-controlled players continue to battle each other, turning Scorched Earth into a zero-player game.

In version 1.1, more weapons were added, such as Napalm, Smoke Tracers, and Liquid Dirt as well as Joystick support and two new death animations among other things.

Also in 1.1, a modem icon was added with the intention of including some form of net play in a following version, however, this feature was never implemented.