Missile
Intercept the incoming barrage and save your cities.
How to play Missile
Enemy missiles streak down toward the cities along the bottom. Click where you want to intercept and your base fires a counter-missile that detonates there in an expanding ring. Anything caught in it is destroyed. Ammo is limited per wave, so aim to catch several missiles in one blast. Lose when all the cities are gone.
Aim ahead, not at the missile
Your counter-missiles are slow, and they destroy things only when they arrive and bloom into an expanding ring. So firing directly at a falling warhead misses. By the time your blast forms, the warhead has moved on. Click well ahead of the missile, in the empty space along its path, and let it fly into your detonation. Think of it like a goalkeeper coming off the line: you're not shooting the ball, you're closing the space it has to pass through. Distance matters too, since the farther from your base you aim, the longer your interceptor takes to arrive, so threats high in the far corners need the earliest clicks of all. Better still, aim where several trails are converging so one ring swallows a whole cluster at once. Ammunition is limited each wave, and trading one interceptor for one missile is how you run dry with the sky still full.
Defend cities, not empty ground
You lose when the last city is gone, so let the harmless shots fall. A warhead heading for bare ground between cities can be ignored; spend your limited counter-missiles on the ones that actually threaten a city, and deal with the salvos aimed at a cluster of them first. A useful habit is to glance along every new trail the moment a wave starts: the angles tell you early which missiles are business and which are theatre. Intercept high up, where you have time and space to catch several at once, rather than waiting until the warheads are low and spread apart, by which point one ring can only cover one of them.
- Detonate in the missile's path, not on top of it. Your blast needs time to arrive.
- Bunch your interceptions where trails cross to catch several warheads per shot.
- Ignore warheads falling on empty ground and save ammo for the ones over your cities.
Budget every wave
Ammo is the real resource, so count it like money. At the start of a wave, eyeball the incoming trails against the shots you have. Eight warheads and six interceptors means at least two of your blasts must be doubles, and that tells you where to aim: at the crossing points, not at any single missile. Fire two blasts side by side and their rings briefly overlap into a wall; laying that wall high across a tight fan of missiles is the closest thing this game has to a power move.
Keep two or three shots in reserve until a wave winds down. Late missiles arrive faster and lonelier, and a bone-dry base watching one warhead drift into a city is the worst feeling on offer. Reserves also cover your misreads, because a blast that catches nothing happens to everyone; the difference between a good defender and a broke one is having a shot left to fix it. And when cities start falling, triage gets blunt: guard the pair that sit close together, where one ring can cover the approach to both, and accept that the far loner may be on its own. None of this needs to be exact. Rough counting done every wave beats perfect counting done once.
A game with no way to win
Missile Command came out of Atari in 1980, designed by Dave Theurer, and it is famous for being genuinely bleak. During development the six cities on screen stood for real places: Theurer thought of them as California cities on a coast under attack. The arcade cabinet steered with a trackball, and the game refused the conventions of its era, because there is no victory screen. The waves keep coming, faster and thicker, until your cities are ash, and when the last one died the original did not say Game Over. It said The End. Arcades bought roughly twenty thousand cabinets, and Theurer went on to design Tempest the very next year, but this is the game that followed him home. Made at the height of Cold War nuclear dread, it reportedly gave Theurer nightmares about the end of the world, and that hopeless, holding-action tension is baked into how it plays. You are not trying to win. You are trying to save what you can for one more wave, and then one more after that.
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Missile: frequently asked questions
How do I catch several at once?
Detonate a blast where multiple incoming missiles will cross. The expanding ring destroys all of them.
Do I run out of ammo?
Each base has limited shots per wave, replenished between waves, so don’t waste them.
Why do my interceptors keep missing the missiles?
Because you are firing straight at them. Your counter-missile takes time to reach the spot and then expands into a ring, so you have to click ahead of a warhead, in its path, and let it fly into the blast.
How do I make my limited ammo last?
Catch several warheads in one detonation. Aim where multiple trails are converging and intercept high up, where a single expanding ring can wipe out a cluster instead of just one missile.
Why should I intercept high instead of low?
High up, the incoming trails are still bunched together, so one ring can erase three or four at once. Wait until they are low and they have spread apart, and each survivor needs its own shot you may not have left.
Do I have to stop every missile?
No. Only the ones heading for your cities matter. Let warheads falling on empty ground go, and spend your shots on the salvos that actually threaten what you are defending.
Is it worth holding shots in reserve?
Yes. Spend most of a wave's ammo on the main volleys but keep two or three interceptors back. Late, fast missiles and misjudged blasts happen to everyone, and an empty base watching a warhead fall is how cities die.
How does the game end?
When your last city is destroyed. There is no final victory (the waves only escalate), so the goal is to protect as many cities as you can for as long as you can.
Is Missile free to play?
Yes. Missile is completely free on Inkplay, with no download, no sign-up, and no in-game purchases. Open the page and play instantly on desktop or mobile.
Can I play Missile unblocked?
Yes. Missile runs entirely in your browser with no download, install, or plugins, so it loads instantly and keeps working even on school or work networks where bigger game sites get blocked.
More games to play
In the mood for more? Try Snake, Breakout, Pong, Blocks, or browse all arcade games and the full games list on Inkplay. Missile also appears in Retro Games.