Iron Nest is the best demo at Steam Next Fest and all you do is load a cannon

Iron Nest: Heavy Turret Simulator is a two-person indie project from developers Nick Nieuwoudt and Dominik Latos, and it's currently the top trending demo on Steam with a 99% Overwhelming Positive rating. It's also, by at least one account, the best demo at June's Steam Next Fest — which is saying something, given how rough this edition of the event has been to wade through.

The premise sounds simple: you're an unnamed Operator working for a shadowy military outfit called High Command, which issues targeting orders via an automatic typewriter. A second typewriter relays messages from frontline troops — and those messages frequently contradict what High Command wants. The game doesn't pretend you're a hero. The very first mission ends with you destroying an allied hospital because High Command knew it was there and didn't care. The dieselpunk aesthetic and morally bleak setup give it more narrative weight than you'd expect from a cannon simulator.

But the real hook is the cannon itself. Firing a shot isn't a matter of clicking a map and pulling a trigger — every single step of the process is tactile and absurdly meticulous. Loading the gun, calculating coordinates, accounting for variables — the demo reportedly takes around 30 minutes just to work through a single firing sequence properly. That kind of deliberate, process-driven gameplay is exactly what makes it stand out in a Next Fest flooded with forgettable entries and, increasingly, AI-generated slop.

Iron Nest's demo is live on Steam right now as part of Next Fest. If the 99% score and trending placement haven't already pushed it onto your radar, consider this your nudge.