Carmageddon (1997)
Carmageddon is a 1997 racing video game made by Stainless Games Ltd. and SCi Games.
Max Damage takes the wheel in a racing game that treats the finish line as optional. With 23 vehicles ranging from a monster truck to a high-octane dragster, Carmageddon scores points for destruction: crushing rival cars, totaling anything else in the environment, and surviving when other drivers return the favor. The 1997 release became notorious for its content, but the core design is a confident demolition derby with physics that give collisions genuine weight across 30-plus tracks built to test how long a vehicle can stay in one piece.
Quick answers
What is Carmageddon about?
Max Damage takes the wheel in a racing game that treats the finish line as optional. With 23 vehicles ranging from a monster truck to a high-octane dragster, Carmageddon scores points for destruction: crushing rival cars, totaling anything else in the environment, and surviving when other drivers return the favor. The 1997 release became notorious for its content, but the core design is a confident demolition derby with physics that give collisions genuine weight across 30-plus tracks built to test how long a vehicle can stay in one piece.
When was Carmageddon released?
Carmageddon was released on 30 June 1997.
Who made Carmageddon?
Carmageddon was made by Stainless Games Ltd., SCi Games and Interplay Entertainment.
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Explore Carmageddon guides
Carmageddon in our writing
- Companion guide: Interplay: By Gamers, For Gamers, and the Golden Age of the RPG
- Companion guide: Killer Cars: The Complete Guide to Vehicular Horror
A few thoughts on Carmageddon
Players drawn to open vehicular destruction as a primary activity should try Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which gives cars the same contempt for their intended purpose in a much larger sandbox. Where Carmageddon isolates the destruction loop, Vice City wraps it in a full city of things to hit.
Open worlds built for wrecking everything in sight
Carmageddon hands Max Damage a demolition derby dressed up as a race, scoring points for chaos as much as speed. Grand Theft Auto V and San Andreas turn entire cities into the same kind of playground, Red Dead Redemption 2 lets its open frontier absorb whatever mayhem you bring to it, and The Furious keeps the franchise's car chase carnage running at full throttle.
Entertainment that treats over-the-top violence as the main event
Carmageddon built its reputation on violence nobody apologized for, and these picks share that unfiltered streak. Mortal Kombat II turns its fights into gleeful gore, The Boys uses superhero brutality as its satire's punchline, The Punisher: One Last Kill lets its vigilante's violence carry the story, Vikings stages its raids as the main spectacle, and God of War makes its brutal finishers the reward for every fight.