 A few weeks back a new indie developed combat flight simulator recently went into early access on steam. It piqued my interest for a number of reasons. It sits on the line somewhere between an arcade action orientated sim and something more hardcore, hopefully taking elements of both genres without falling foul to their downsides. It features a near future setting with fictional aircraft and ground units but all the vehicles and units in it are close enough to their real world counterparts that you still know roughly what you're dealing with when you see them. It has cooperative and player vs player online combat as well as single player missions all played out in a huge spectacular landscape that features multiple airstrips, islands and cities. And it also features nuclear weapons, yes you heard that correctly this combat flight simulator incorporates nuclear weapons as part of its arsenal. I'm Commander Burr and this is a first look at nuclear option. If like me you're the kind of combat flight sim enthusiast that likes the idea of playing something super hardcore like DCS but you just don't have the time nor the inclination to plow through a tone like manual just to learn how to target something, if you'd like a slightly more lightweight combat simulation but find games like the Ace Combat Series 2 Facile and lacking in any actual depth when it comes to weapons and tactics and the pay or grind for what you want mechanics of games like War Thunder just scare the amrams off you then nuclear option could well be for you. At the time of recording the game features 5 fully flyable roll specific aircraft with at least one more on the way, 2 warring factions and a plethora of weapons, ground units and buildings. There's a small number of developer created missions that can be tackled in single or multiplayer each mission features ground units and aircraft that have their own agenda as well as the task specific missions and objectives set out for the players to complete. The game ships with an easy to use mission editor and as you can imagine there is already a host of community generated missions that can be easily downloaded and installed predominantly through the games official discord server. Multiplayer is easy to set up and initiate and requires no matchmaking or waiting for players to join before getting into the action and games can be joined mid flow with a hard limit of 16 human players per game. Bear in mind however that multiplayer also contains a huge number of AI units going about their own business. It's this get up and go aspect of the multiplayer that leads me to one of the games strongest suites. A mission variant is available in multiplayer and single player called escalation. The scenario is a full on no holds barred fully dynamic conflict between the games two factions the Boscali defence force and the Primaeva armed liberation alliance referred to as the BDF and Pala in game for convenience. In escalation mode if players take no action the AI will continue to fight a war against itself across the games huge battlefield and the escalation mode is well monocled as the game progresses and AI combatants and players alike gain kills they level up unlocking access to each successive tier of the games current 5 aircraft until eventually access is gained to the dark reach strategic stealth bomber and its ability to drop not only large payloads of conventional high explosives but also thermobaric munitions and even 1.5 kiloton nuclear free fall bombs and 20 kiloton nuclear cruise missiles. The arrival of nuclear weapons onto the battlefield as you'd imagine ups the anti somewhat vaporising your chosen landing field and everyone in it tends to have that effect but by no means does it signify that the war is over there's just much more of an incentive to shoot down the games ominous looking dark reach bombers or indeed their cruising nuclear ordnance before it reaches its destination overall there's a comfortably late 90s field to the simulation if you were a pursuing combat flight simulation perfection around that period and anything from DID crossed your path I'm thinking specifically of something like F 22 total air war then you'll know exactly what I'm talking about the action doesn't stop at fictional equivalent F 22s and B 2 spirits however the most recently added aircraft in the game is the SAH 46 chicane attack helicopter its real world equivalents being a slightly chonkier Comanche or stealthy Apache gunship and just recently the games developers shock front studios announced a V toll dedicated electronic warfare plane nuclear option utilizes the unity engine to very good effect meaning its graphics are by no means absolutely bleeding edge but they do more than do the job required of them displaying viewing distances and action that is upwards of 20 to 50 kilometers away on occasions with the whole thing kicking along at a cracking pace and it should continue to do so on most machines the recommended spec on steam calling for just an Intel Core i5 16 gig of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 970 or equivalent if you wanted to particularly in the games aforementioned escalation mode you can sit back and just watch what happens anywhere across the battlefield using the games camera suite which handily comes with a very neat slow-mo feature which really helps show off the extensive damage modeling as I mentioned the game has just entered early access on steam and the roadmap for future developments and updates is posted off of the games main menu it can be flown very well with a mouse and keyboard but just recently better support for joysticks and hotas was added with support for head tracking being worked on at the time of recording right now you can pick up the game for less than 13 pounds which is ridiculously reasonably priced for what is included let alone what the developers have planned for later releases if you've got any questions about the game let us know in the comments and we'll do our best to answer them for you we'll be keeping a close watch on nuclear option on this channel from here on so make sure you're subscribed to keep up with any updates