By Kotaku | Created at 2026-06-20 14:18:09 | Updated at 2026-06-20 17:51:56
3 hours ago
June’s Steam Next Fest has, personally, been pretty disappointing. Now, don’t get me wrong, there have been some standout bangers, but wading through all the crap to find the diamonds in the rough has never felt harder. Maybe I’m getting pickier, or maybe it’s all the AI slop that’s littering the event, but Next Fest has just been a miserable experience for me this time around.
That being said, there is one game that’s made it all feel worthwhile. Yet, if I’m being completely honest with you, I didn’t find it by chance, and I certainly didn’t discover it by wading through Next Fest’s endless list of demos, as it’s literally the top demo on Steam’s trending tab. And, to be completely transparent, the devs also sent me lots of funny emails about it.
Look, you’ve read the title, and you’ve probably seen this pop up on Steam at least once at some point in the last week, so you already know that the demo I’m referring to is Iron Nest: Heavy Turret Simulator; the ultra-relastic cannon-firing simulator developed by a two-man team, whose names are Nick Nieuwoudt and Dominik Latos, that’s currently sitting at a 99 percent Overwhelming Positive score on Steam.
However, my preamble about how much of a disappointment Next Fest has been is relevant because… well, if I hadn’t been so bummed out by June’s offerings, I probably would have never bothered trying Iron Nest, because, on the surface, it doesn’t exactly look like my cup of tea. Firing a big cannon sounds cool, obviously, but military simulators aren’t really my kind of bag. But despite that, Iron Nest is easily one of the best demos I have ever played.
You’re probably wondering what you do in Iron Nest, but I wasn’t being reductive earlier when I said it’s a game about firing a massive cannon. Ok, well–actually maybe it’s more accurate to say that it’s a game about loading a massive cannon. You play as an unnamed Operator working for a mysterious and cartoonishly evil outfit named High Command, a faceless military group that sends you orders via an automatic typewriter.
“Every operation in Iron Nest feels tactile and absurdly meticulous”
Beyond chastising you with the odd “do better,” High Command is very matter-of-fact: here’s some coordinates, or a rough approximation of a location, and here’s the type of artillery you should bombard the area with. However, there’s also a second typewriter that relays information from troops on the front lines, and these messages tend to be a lot more expressive…and occasionally directly contradict the orders you receive from High Command. Iron Nest isn’t trying to set up some kind of twist or fool you into thinking you’re a hero, as it’s pretty blatant that you’re working for the bad guys. Following the orders given to you in Iron Nest’s first mission results in some hefty collateral damage, as you end up destroying an allied hospital that’s situated next to your target. High Command knew it was there, and they didn’t give a fuck.
But while the setting and the dieselpunk aesthetic are surprisingly compelling, the star of the show in Iron Nest is, well, the Iron Nest. Firing on an enemy isn’t as simple as clicking on a map and pulling a trigger. In fact, it couldn’t be further from simplistic, as every single step, from calculating the enemy’s position to loading your dual-barreled cannon, is a ridiculously involved process. Every operation in Iron Nest feels tactile and absurdly meticulous, but god does it feel satisfying.
You start by writing down High Command’s commands on your little clipboard, and then you chart the range and bearing from the Iron Nest to the target on your stupidly large gridded map. Then you input said range into your Ballistic Calculator, which calculates how many powder charges your cannon will need and its required elevation height. Then you load the correct shell, then you use your bearing data to manually rotate your turrets, and then you input your elevation data… at which point you can finally fire your big ass cannon.
And that is just the first mission. If you can believe it, things get even more complicated from there. Sometimes you’re given incomplete target data, which means you have to manually calculate or even just straight-up estimate a location by physically drawing on your map. Occasionally, the Iron Nest will start malfunctioning, requiring you to run around and fix things in between steps. And now and again, you might also be getting shot at by enemy cannons while you attempt to figure out said enemy’s position.
It might sound stressful and brain-destroying, but I weirdly found it to be quite a relaxing experience. Because there’s such a strict order to things and you have to actively engage your brain to figure things out, there’s a strange rhythm to it all. It also helps that every piece of equipment you have to operate feels tangible. Rotating valves and pulling levers is gratifyingly perceptible to the point that even making a cup of coffee in the Iron Nest feels like a hard-earned yet rewarding experience.
Iron Nest is a game about firing a big cannon, and yet, you will spend 99 percent of your time in Iron Nest doing everything except firing a big cannon. It’s fiddly, it’ll make you feel dumb at times, and occasionally it comes close to mimicking the feeling of working a full-time job. But despite all this, it did something unthinkable to me: it made me feel smart. Based on my past experiences with simulator games, I shouldn’t like Iron Nest. Instead, I love it. There are so many incredible games coming out this year, and yet suddenly I find myself most excited about playing a bloody military sim in 2026.
June’s 2026 Next Fest might be the worst one on record, but Iron Nest is easily the best demo I have ever played on Steam. I just hope this isn’t a gateway drug to watching World War I documentaries and painting little realistic figurines of army men.
