IRON NEST

IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator went from a Steam Next Fest demo to a released PC game. The demo arrived on Steam on June 15, timed to the June 2026 Next Fest, and drew more than 1,400 reviews with a Very Positive rating at that point. By the June 25 launch announcement the review count was over 5,000 at 99 percent positive, with a wishlist count above 500,000, and the demo had ranked second among the 50 most played demos at the festival. The launch was set for August 7, 2026, and the game was out by August 6 at 1,980 yen.

The game itself is a first-person artillery simulator set in an alternate-history Spain of the late 1920s, where World War I never happened and monarchists hold power against republican uprisings. The player operates the IRON NEST, a 5,000-ton-class multi-legged land turret, through levers, dials, and buttons, following orders from headquarters and the front lines. Firing is manual from start to finish: plotting targets on an operations map, entering values into a ballistic calculator, setting propellant charges, and choosing from roughly 30 shell types, including armor-piercing, smoke, and gas rounds. Rotating the fortress takes considerable time, which the developers say gives the game its feel.

After release the developers described the design as a psychological simulator rather than a mechanical one. Nick Nieuwoudt, who made the game with Dominik Latos, said the most moving feedback came from veterans who told him it captures the real work of fire direction commanders and gunners, including one who said it helped them face PTSD-related memories. A later demo playthrough account describes a game that explains none of its setting at the start and leaves the player alone with manuals beside each interior facility, seven steps to fire one shell, and a bunk that advances to the next day, where a newspaper reports what the previous day's shelling did. The tank has a shower, toilet, kitchen, and, in the full version, a customizable cat.