the organisation never "looked into the product". During development of the game, Cockayne and Mays obtained figures and statistics of various military strength from the Ministry of Defence and the Soviet embassy in London. Cockayne asserted that the statistics the developers gained were realistically plausible, stating that he would let the "horrifying results speak for themselves" during the game. Game designer Alan Steel stated that during testing, he was "alarmed" to discover when the computer played itself, the Warsaw Pact always won a conventional war overwhelmingly, forcing NATO to either surrender or begin a nuclear war. Steel adjusted the game to give NATO a chance to win. Theatre Europe was first released in the United Kingdom for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Atari 8-bit home computers in 1985. It was then re-released in France and the United States for those consoles in 1986. Due to lobbying from the CND, high street outlets such as Boots and John Menzies refused to sell the game in their stores, with the former finding it "morally offensive". Reception The game received critical acclaim upon release. Gwyn Hughes of Your Sinclair defended the accuracy and morality of the game, stating that it was not in "bad taste" and that the game was a "well researched program", which he thought would give the player an insight into the nature of modern war. Philippa Irving of Crash similarly stated that Theatre Europe offered more than a usual "run-of-the-mill" war game and heralded its simplistic nature, adding that novice gamers would "get in to it with ease". John Gilbert of Sinclair User added scepticism over the developer's intention of making something "so serious" as opposed to their other titles; however he praised the game as a "brilliant, if chilling" simulation. A reviewer writing for ZX Computing similarly stated that the game was "superbly chilling" and "extremely" well-presented. A reviewer of Computer and Video Games criticised the inferior graphics on the ZX Spectrum, stating that they were "a bit flawed" in comparison to the Commodore 64 version. Bill Harrington reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World, and stated that " TE does a credible job of demonstrating the perils of escalation and dramatizing how slippery the slope to nuclear war might be, but is basically a game in search of a market." Mark Reed of Computer Gamer noted that the game attracted media attention, despite the