Theatre Europe is a turn-based strategy video game developed and published by Personal Software Services (PSS).

To request a nuclear strike, the player was required to call a dedicated telephone number to hear an automated message giving the authorisation code.

[5] The main feature of the game is focused on a map of Europe and western Russia, which displays accurate terrain such as mountain ranges, major cities, borders and all military forces belonging to each side.

Depending on the area chosen, an illustration of a battle commencing in countryside or a city is presented with various forms of military equipment including aeroplanes, helicopters and tanks.

[8] If the screen detailing the attacking phase has been turned off in the settings, the battle will instead be decided on warrants of air superiority and armaments.

In an interview with Your Computer magazine, Gary Mays stated that Theatre Europe received heavy criticism from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

During development of the game, Cockayne and Mays obtained figures and statistics of various military strength from the Ministry of Defence and the Soviet embassy in London.

[3] Cockayne asserted that the statistics the developers gained were realistically plausible, stating that he would let the "horrifying results speak for themselves" during the game.

[3] Theatre Europe was first released in the United Kingdom for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Atari 8-bit home computers in 1985.

[11] Due to lobbying from the CND, high street outlets such as Boots and John Menzies refused to sell the game in their stores, with the former finding it "morally offensive".

[4] Philippa Irving of Crash similarly stated that Theatre Europe offered more than a usual "run-of-the-mill" war game and heralded its simplistic nature, adding that novice gamers would "get in to it with ease".

[5] John Gilbert of Sinclair User added scepticism over the developer's intention of making something "so serious" as opposed to their other titles; however he praised the game as a "brilliant, if chilling" simulation.

[16] A reviewer of Computer and Video Games criticised the inferior graphics on the ZX Spectrum, stating that they were "a bit flawed" in comparison to the Commodore 64 version.

The magazine reported that the arcade portion "quickly becomes a nuisance" and NATO could not defeat the Warsaw Pact because of lack of balance, flaws that did not exist in the Commodore 64 version.