Over the past years, many landmark titles like “Resident Evil,” “Silent Hill,” “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “Outlast,” and more have popped up and shaped the genre like no other.
Horror games in the present-day industry are a dime-a-dozen, and the main trouble of trying to make an effective horror title is by making it memorable. From the creator of the first-person shooter “DUSK,” David Syzmanski, he presents: “Iron Lung.”
“Iron Lung” was released on March 9 of 2022, but the extremely pixelated Quake-like visual aesthetic of the environments are the first thing any gamer’s eyes will hook on. This follows true in Syzmanski’s style when it comes to art direction, but in terms of a horror game, this doesn’t detract from the experience that “Iron Lung” will provide for you.
The story of “Iron Lung” isn’t expansive or fleshed out. It mainly exists to give an idea of what has transpired in time. The solar system has gone kaput, and so have the stars. What’s leftover are space stations, and moons with very unnerving bodies of fluid called ‘blood oceans.’ You play as a prisoner who is offered their freedom on the condition that they navigate one of these blood oceans and photograph scenery and landmarks within it. How this is done is with the use of a loosely constructed vessel called the Iron Lung.
“Iron Lung” doesn’t let on any more important details. The game is extremely claustrophobic and keeps to itself. As soon as you begin playing, the game goes in an even more dangerous direction- the porthole, which is the only window, gets sealed in order for the Iron Lung’s stability.
The gameplay of “Iron Lung” requires you to navigate the blood ocean by checking your map, structured like a graph of X and Y coordinates, and moving forward or backward with a pair of arrows. In order to turn, you must adjust your angle, which is done by interacting with a different set of arrows below a radar that will light up in case you are near something.
Your only window has now been covered, so the only way to see anything around you is by going to the back of the Iron Lung and pressing the button on the wall. Doing so will photograph what’s in front of the submarine in a staticky, colorless picture. You have to do this in very specific locations on the map within two degrees or coordinates above or below the location’s point. However, while this all sounds simple, “Iron Lung’s” greatest strength is how it manages to make you feel truly endangered.
The feeling of being alone in a very small submarine that is on the verge of falling apart with the smallest impact is fearful of itself, but there’s something else that’s even more terrifying in “Iron Lung”: what you don’t know. “Iron Lung’s” suppression of any details whatsoever is assisted by the horrifically so-simplistic-it’s-disturbing atmosphere. Atmosphere and sound design is done to a degree that is so simple that it’s nerve-wracking.
“Iron Lung” isn’t a typical horror game with in-your-face jumpscares, high pitched screams, or pale girls with black hair in white dresses. Instead, the vessel itself is scary enough. One can quickly adapt to the deafening silence within the submarine to the point where things like thumping, the machinery of the submarine making noise, or bolts popping off will do the scaring for whatever possible threat there may be. Beside that, the mysterious nature of this game is ruthless.
The biggest question you will keep asking yourself through this experience is: “Am I really alone down here?” Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t, but having to rely on sounds and using a low-quality camera’s pictures to figure that out will make that question popular. There’s only one way to find out the answer.
Thus, “Iron Lung” is extremely unpredictable, all the way to its ending. It strays from cliches that are seen in present-day horror games, and it works. The ending of “Iron Lung”itself was so rewarding in its own way.
It’s not the kind of ending that grants a reward or gives you a new item if you replay the game. However, no matter how it made you feel, this game’s ending is one that will make you think twice about thinking horror games are predictable. “Iron Lung” already managed to establish that by allowing for natural sound effects to be terrifying enough to make someone’s hair stand up, and for that, it deserves recognition.
Know this, though: “Iron Lung” is more of an experience than a game. Even after an update that was released in June, playing through it a second time will not change anything. “Iron Lung” can be completed in a matter of a couple of hours.
This being said, even though there is a $5.99 price-tag for it, “Iron Lung” is well worth it. It might not have you keep crawling back to it nightly, but the experience of it is one that sticks with you until the end of time. Even though you’re stuck in a worn-out submarine submerged very far below surface level in an unidentified body of liquid, the game still feels like a breath of fresh air for fans of horror alike.
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