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Real-time grand strategy · 3D globe · 2027

Lead a nation through a world on the brink.

Fronts grind across a real map. Missile and drone salvos test your air defences. Factories race attrition, fleets and air wings contest the sea and sky, and every step up the escalation ladder brings the world closer to nuclear war.

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The exchange, in game

Photosensitivity warning. This video shows nuclear detonations with bright flashes and rapid changes in light.

In-game footage, 1 January 2027 from about 00:34 UTC: US Minuteman III launches, both salvos over the pole, re-entry over the eastern seaboard, New York. No audio.

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In-game · 1 Jan 2027 · 00:34–00:55 UTCUS Minuteman III launches and the Russian reply cross the pole.

The premise

Modern war is won by industry and magazines. The ladder above it ends in ruin.

You lead one nation in a live 2027 world, from the Donbas to the Taiwan Strait. Interceptors run out. Factories get struck. The side that out-produces the other’s losses wins the war, as long as the war stays conventional.

The game makes that case through play, not lectures: on the map, in the stockpile, and in the casualty count.

World grid
4,096 × 2,048 cells, about 10 km each
Start date
1 January 2027
Clock
Real time to two days a second, with pause
Researched nations
42 individually cited, the rest from scaled templates

01Strategic

Industry, stockpiles and the salvo war

The long war is fought in factories and magazines. Expand production lines, set mobilisation, buy and lend munitions, and repair what the enemy hits. Plan salvos against airbases, depots and refineries, and place batteries to defend your own. Every interceptor you fire comes out of a finite stock.

Salvos
Drones to saturate, cruise and ballistic missiles to kill. Drones launch hours early so the raid arrives together.
Air defence
Point, medium, long-range and anti-ballistic batteries, each with a magazine, fire channels and reloads from the national stockpile.
Production
Lines, mobilisation, purchases and lend-lease. Equipment losses and spent munitions must be replaced.
Research
Take a system from research through prototype and trials to a production line. New lines cost political capital, more in some capitals than others.
Europe from orbit with every country in its own colour and fighting in the east.
Europe at war
Bright ballistic missile arcs crossing the Middle East toward Israel.
Iranian missiles arc toward Israel over Iraq and Jordan
The strike panel with a target list and salvo composition, over a map of Ukraine and Russia.
Strike command: salvo planning against Russian airbases, depots and refineries
The air-defence panel listing batteries and interceptor stocks, with coverage rings over Ukraine.
Air defence: batteries, magazines and coverage

02Operational

Fronts, air wings and task forces

Organise divisions into army groups, give them a front, a stance and objectives, and command directly or through the General Staff. The line moves cell by cell across real terrain, where rivers, cities and mountains matter. Above it, squadrons fly air superiority, close air support, strike, SEAD and intercept missions. At sea, task forces strike from their launch cells, escort landings and enforce blockades.

Land
Army groups, stances, entrenchment and encirclement. Drones and artillery grind the line; a river crossing is a real obstacle.
Air
Missions per squadron, SEAD packages against the batteries that cover their route, patrols that stay out of known SAM envelopes.
Sea
The Taiwan Strait is decided at sea: sealift, sea and air control, submarines and anti-submarine warfare, and supply that depends on lift.
Terrain map of eastern Ukraine with Russian-held ground in red and the front line along its edge.
The Donbas front: divisions in contact, attacks and supply lines
Oblique view across the Taiwan Strait with ship and aircraft tracks over blue water.
The Taiwan Strait by day, two days into the war
Dozens of missile trails leaving a line of warships over open sea.
The PLA Navy fires a massed land-attack salvo at northern Taiwan
The game interface with the army panel open beside a map of Ukraine coloured by control.
Army command: army groups, equipment and the front across Ukraine

03Tactical

One missile, one street

Zoom from orbit to street level. Follow a single missile in flight, watch the defences engage it, and see where it lands. Interceptions are marked where they happen, with the system that made them. Impacts leave craters and burned blocks that stay on the map.

Missile follow
Chase cameras for drones, cruise missiles and ballistic warheads, with the weapon, the target, time to impact and altitude.
Time
The clock slows on its own when a salvo is launched at you. Pause at any moment to decide.
War damage
Each missile, drone or bomb leaves a crater scaled to its warhead, and struck cities show the damage.
Interceptor trails climbing from the Taipei area toward incoming missiles.
Taiwan's SAMs rise to meet the salvo; an AWACS and fighters overhead
Night view of Kyiv with drone and missile tracks converging on the city lights.
The raid reaches Kyiv's air defences
Street-level map of Kharkiv with dark craters and burning blocks across the city.
Kharkiv at street level: craters, burning blocks and ruin
A carrier group under a sun glint on dark water.
Afternoon sun on the Taiwan Strait: the Fujian carrier group

04Politics

Every government answers to someone

Each nation is bound by its own politics. Democracies answer to legislatures and elections; autocracies manage their elites, public order and the risk of a coup. Alliances are the real treaties, with their real scope, and an aggressor’s own partners can walk away from it.

Legislatures
Wars of choice need a vote, and the legislature holds the purse. Elections fall on their real dates; leaders can be impeached or lose a confidence vote.
Legitimacy
Five regime types, each with its own foundations. Conquest does not play well at home, and a suspended constitution is not forgotten.
Alliances
Treaty terms decide who answers and how. Allies send expeditionary corps to the front.
National agendas
Mission trees for Ukraine, the United States, China, Russia, Taiwan, Israel, Iran and North Korea, with choices that close other paths for good.
A diplomacy dialog over the globe announcing that Taiwan asks the United States to join the war.
Diplomacy: alliances, relations and war goals across four wars
The Korean peninsula split in purple and blue, with aircraft and missile tracks near the border.
The Korean DMZ: artillery duels and missile raids on Seoul
Taiwan at night between the Chinese coast and the Pacific, with task-force tracks in the strait.
Night over the Taiwan Strait: task forces and air patrols

05Escalation

There is no clean win.

Escalation climbs one rung at a time, and each nuclear power reads it through its own doctrine. Some warn first. Some hold to no first use until they are struck. Some threaten to escalate in order to end a war.

Before any release, the planner shows how many warheads are expected to get through and what they will do to the cities below. Blast and fire scale with yield, casualties follow population, and fallout drifts downwind. A launch detection always pauses the game.

Past a threshold of more than a hundred cities struck, fifty megatons, or a full exchange between great powers, the game ends for every nation and shows you the toll.

The exchange, in game

Photosensitivity warning. This video shows nuclear detonations with bright flashes and rapid changes in light.

In-game footage, 1 January 2027 from about 00:34 UTC: US Minuteman III launches, both salvos over the pole, re-entry over the eastern seaboard, New York. No audio.

  1. Rung 5Strategic exchangeSilos, submarines and bombers. Cities.
  2. Rung 4Tactical nuclear useWarheads of tens of kilotons on the battlefield.
  3. Rung 3Strategic assets and capitalsEarly-warning radars, strategic forces, the seat of government.
  4. Rung 2Deep strikesMissiles and drones far behind the lines.
  5. Rung 1Border warFighting along the front.
  6. Rung 0CrisisTension short of war.
A red full-screen launch warning with a countdown and two choices, over the globe.
Launch detected: 1,686 Russian warheads inbound. Retaliate or ride out.
A mushroom cloud rising over farmland and forest near Kharkiv, with a scorched ring at its base.
A Russian tactical nuclear strike on Kharkiv's outskirts
Several mushroom clouds and glowing ground bursts over the New York metropolitan area.
Mushroom clouds over New York

Photosensitivity warning

Conflict Control shows nuclear detonations with bright full-screen flashes, and rapid changes of light during missile strikes. A very small percentage of people may experience a seizure when exposed to flashing lights or patterns, even with no history of epilepsy.

If you or anyone in your family has epilepsy or has had a seizure, talk to a doctor before playing. Stop playing at once if you feel dizzy or disoriented, or notice altered vision, twitching or any involuntary movement. The background video on this page contains no detonations and does not play if your device asks for reduced motion.

Data and realism

Every number has a source.

Forces, stockpiles, production rates, missile ranges and treaty terms come from a compiled open-source dataset. Every entry is cited and carries a confidence rating. The softest numbers are the missile and interceptor stocks of closed states, and the data says so.

Military and political data

  • FAS Status of World Nuclear Forces and the Nuclear Notebookwarheads, triads, basing
  • Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsChinese and Russian nuclear forces
  • CSIS Missile Threatmissile ranges, classes and characteristics
  • SIPRIarms transfers and deliveries
  • US DoD China Military Power ReportPLA force structure and launcher counts
  • Congressional Research Servicenaval and amphibious forces
  • US Naval War College, China Maritime Studies InstitutePLA sealift and anti-submarine aviation
  • Treaty texts and the US State Departmentwhat each alliance actually obliges
  • V-Dem, EIU Democracy Index, Freedom Houseeach government’s type and institutions
  • ISW, OSW and wire reportingthe starting Russia–Ukraine front, settlement by settlement
  • Kiel Institute, RUSI, USNI, Defense News, Reutersproduction rates, aid, 2025–26 events

The 2027 front starts from the situation researched to 26 September 2026. Its line is our own interpolation between settlement-level facts; no third-party control map was traced.

The map

A terrain map, not satellite imagery: land cover, relief and sea depth drawn in the game’s own muted style, with every country in its own colour.

  • ESA WorldCover 2021 CC BY 4.0© ESA WorldCover project 2021 / Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021) processed by ESA WorldCover consortium. Land cover generalised and restyled for the game.
  • Copernicus DEM (GLO-30, GLO-90) Copernicus DEM licenceProduced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 and WorldDEM-90 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved.
  • NOAA NCEI ETOPO 2022 Public domainRelief and sea-floor depth.
  • NASA Blue Marble and Black Marble Public domainNASA Earth Observatory. The globe from orbit and the night lights.
  • Natural Earth Public domainBorders, rivers and base geography.
  • OpenStreetMap ODbL© OpenStreetMap contributors, via Protomaps. The street-level map.

Press and creators

Logo, key art, ten 4K screenshots, the reel and a fact sheet.

Open the press kit