DEFCON 1 is a historical and political wargame, set during the Cold War from 1950 to 1990, played on a beautiful 90 x 60cm game board.

This strategic board game is characterized by a gameplay that changes according to the number of players, ranging from a Frontal Shock Game at 2 players to a semi-cooperative game with 4 players, ending with a secret objective game in the 5 player version.
The game is played in five different phases: Initialization, R&D, Political, Production, Atomic and Warfare.

The players control five different blocs: three major blocs (the Atlantic Alliance, the Warsaw Pact, the Non-Aligned Movement) and two minor blocs (France and China).

DEFCON 1 recreates every aspect of the Cold War, from the political and diplomatical intrigue, to open war, to the threat of the nuclear 'solution'.
It is a fully asymmetrical strategy game: each bloc has its strengths and weaknesses, using its own technological tree, its mission and objective cards, and even a scalable pool of units.

As the title suggests, the DEFCON level degrades during the game from 5 to 1, and the level degrades depending on the actions of the players, opening new strategical options that will become available, such as building nuclear bombs.