My first time being exposed to Iron Lung was pretty bad. I saw nothing but praise amongst the Steam user base and countless YouTube thumbnails with shocked faces and exaggerated titles expressing the quality of this game. However my friends told me a different story. They were intrigued by the publicity, they bought the game but came back disappointed. They were mad, they expected what their favorite YouTubers were hooting and raving about. They talked about how the gameplay was shallow, they talked about the pitiful length of the game and they were severely disappointed with the ending. From listening to my friends I thought Iron Lung was gonna be bad. But when I bought it and played for a while I realized something. I realized my friend’s were wrong.

You’re put in a submarine deep within the blood ocean of a moon. All you do is traverse the area and take pictures of the ocean floor. You can’t actually see where you are going however though you have a digitized map with cords to help. Using the cords and the accompanying map you carefully traverse the narrow deep sea caverns to take your pictures in specific locations on the map. Behind you is the button you hit to take the picture, the left of the button has a screen that previews what you photographed and the right of the button has a console where you can put codes in to read up on some lore.

Iron Lung is a very eerie and atmospheric game. The hums and squeaks of the vessel, the PS1 aesthetic mixed with the rustic color palette and that very uncomfortable claustrophobic feeling makes Iron Lung’s setting feel very lonesome to me. Especially since nothing necessarily happens for most of the game and you’re just forced to live with that lonely feeling and learn what to do. The moment you get comfortable with traversing the deep sea the game seems like a cake walk. Maybe a fire will break in your ship but you can easily take it out with a fire extinguisher but other than that you just traverse and take your pictures. The game seems to be so easy it’s boring, however that is exactly what Iron Lung is trying to do. Because once you feel as if you get it then you’re already in the game’s trap.

I won’t mention what happens in the game but I want to describe what you will feel. Once it starts you’ll be confused, you’ll look around and wonder what just happened. You do your routine but something different happens, then suddenly another thing happens. Once it dawns on you you start to panic. Your heart will beat faster. You concentrate on your moves while the back of your mind is trying to piece together what might happen. You never had to think this hard but now you suddenly do, you just do the same thing but now it’s harder because of this added level of stress. It throws you off guard. Something else starts happening. This makes you panic, you can’t necessarily take in what’s going on you just have to continue. You finally get at least close to your final objective. You finally want to get this over with. You make the fast move and then it happens. A jolt. The unexpected happens and…. Iron Lung.

I think that this very short game uses horror to its full potential. It takes a trope that is done to death within both game and movie media and uses it to its full potential at the very end. I recommend this game 100%. I don’t think people will get the same experience by just watching a YouTube video of the full playthrough or even hearing what happens. The best way to experience this game is to go in blind. Because if I listened to my friends and dropped the game before the gears started working then I would be in the same boat as them. However since I stayed I am now happy I stayed on that stranded sub.