A brief history of explosions in video games

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Bang! Conflagration! EXPLOTA!

2007: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

2008: Far Cry 2

Not only are the explosions in Far Cry 2 model examples of barrel physics and what-have you, they even start fires. Fires which can spread into fields, moving with the wind. These are proper explosions that behave as explosions should. Must've been to Explosion obedience classes. Yup.

2009: 'Splosion Man

The dude explodes to jump, explodes to kill and explodes to... well, pretty much do anything, really. Probably even explodes to explode. And we love him for it.

2011: Motorstorm Apocalypse

The fourth game in the Motorstorm series may have been underwhelming, but it was BIG on explosions. The apocalyptic setting saw cities crumble and explode as you raced. But the explosions have earned their place here by being unrealistically frequent. Even a minor prang can see your vehicle go up like it's packed full of particularly volatile dynamite. So just in case you're as explosioned out as we were after playing this game, here concludes our brief history of explosions.

But there are thousands of games in existence, approximately 84.8675% of which have explosions in them. So tell us - what's your favourite explosion in gaming? To get you started, I'll admit - mine's the 3D one from Super Stardust HD. Hey - each to their own, right?

Justin Towell
Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.