Which games just let you smash stuff up without interruption?

Red Faction: Guerrilla? Smash some stuff on Mars?

I mean, there's always the classic Rampage:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampage_%28video_game%29

Hardspace: Shipbreaker has you tearing old spaceships apart for salvage. A lot of it is sorting your space recyclables, but towards the end of story mode

::: spoiler Spoiler You get to absolutely trash a wreck, recovering 0 salvage value, to show management what for. :::

Blast Corps for N64. IIRC, the whole point of the game was to use different heavy equipment to destroy stuff.

Check out Teardown

There's an old game called Carmageddon where you could wreck people and other cars pretty well without interrupting.

BroForce. There are enemies, but it's totally just blowing shit up with parodies of action movie heroes. Lots of cascading explosions, very satisfying.

• Blast Corps 64 - You need to smash everything out of the way of an out-of-control nuclear armed truck using various tools ranging from bulldozers to a full on mech suit.

• Just Cause 3 - You capture enemy territory by blowing up everything colored red.

• Teardown - You're a demolition company and you're tasked with demolishing various things.

• Donkey Kong Banaza - Not played it myself, but the game just appears to be Donkey Kong going ape shit and wrecking up everything he sees.

• The Sims - Smash and destroy the dreams and aspirations of your virtual doll people

The term you would want to search for is 'destructible environments.'

• Worms games
• Split Second
• Destroy All Humans
• Red Faction:Guerilla
• Just Cause 2 (so much destruction)
• Shipbreaker is a more relaxed demolition game
• The Street fighter still is reminding me of Bloody Roar where you could kick enemies through walls to fight in another area
• BeamNG.Drive
• Wreckfest
• Control
• 7 Days to Die
• Dysmantle

Rampage (1986) comes to mind, but (minor) enemies are present and I don't think it applies damage in layers.

https://archive.org/details/arcade_rampage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampage_(game)

Can't believe I'm shilling for Nintendo for the second time in like a month but this seems to be a type of fantasy Donkey Kong: Bananza could fulfill? That whole game's selling point was fully destructible environments.

Pretty much all of the Lego games are about destroying everything to get parts to build more things.

Not super much destructible environment, but enough to satisfy most chaos gremlins, can be found in Goat Simulator.

Not retro, but Instruments of Destruction is made by one of the Red Faction devs. Also check out Abriss.

Both are machine building games with a focus on destruction. Instruments of Destruction does have a ton of prebuilt vehicles though if building isn’t your thing. The he campaign is also pretty easy to plow through to unlock the prebuilts.

Love the humour after this one too

"Kid just raged for a while" - Bastion narrator

obligatory: metal gear rising revengeance - force of nature

It’s only a few years old, but Teardown is all about demolishing neighborhoods.

Punch a tree in Minecraft?

Demolition Inc? Scratched that sort of itch for me a while back, still available on Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/app/98600/Demolition_Inc/

If you ignore the missions, Jungle/Urban/Desert Strike. Just annihilate the president's motorcade via helicopter, as you do.

Not really what you want, but Two Crude (Dudes) is one of the stupidest game I have ever played. Available on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. It's Final Fight in a Mad Max environment, and it's very ugly.

I'm just gonna leave this here...

Red Faction 3 is third person and really let's you break buildings and structures.