About the Game
With a writing team that includes credits on Far Cry, Mass Effect, and Sovereign Syndicate, Aether & Iron brings to life an alternate timeline in which anti-gravitational aether technology has reshaped the city skyline and deepened social divides.
Thoroughly researched and inspired by real-life counterparts from 1930s New York City, explore its backstreets, dive into its seedy underbelly, marvel at stunning architecture, and peel back the city's many layers of power and greed.
Your choices shape not just your path, but the city's fate as well. Will you rise as a savior, withdraw as a renegade, or evolve into a symbol of resilience in a world of authoritarian barons and high-stakes strategy?
What good is a smuggler without a good getaway car? Assemble a wide range of incredible aether-powered vehicles and unlock new tactical options to try out in an interesting twist on strategic, turn-based vehicular battles.
Tinker with your rides to suit your playstyle. Do you prefer moving hard and fast, relying on speed for quick getaways? Or perhaps you might prefer to slap on some steel plates and bust out the grenade launcher!
The streets of New York can be unforgiving without reliable backup. Recruit unique and resourceful companions to watch your back, and follow their stories. Each is armed with a range of talents that can make all the difference in a jam.
The Cast:
We have over 200 voiced characters in the game, here are a few:
Dive Into An Underground Life: Navigate secret paths, dodge enemies, hide contraband, and stay ahead of the big bosses out to get you. Perhaps join a rebellion along the way.
Your Choices Matter: Your decisions will shape the unfolding history of New York and the lives of its citizens, determining whether they will be able to find hope in a corrupt world of manipulation and violence.
Grow Your Talents: Level up your Hustle, Smarts, and Brass abilities to improve your chances in combat and social situations. But no matter how good you are always a dice roll away from success or failure.
Drive In Style: Upgrade your aether-powered rides to suit your playstyle. Enhance your cars with every trick in the smuggler’s toolkit - hidden compartments, smoke dispensers, and flamethrowers of course.
Hand-drawn Art: Inspired by 1930’s Detective Comics and the Art Deco period, Aether & Iron brings a unique visual identity to gameplay.
Full English Language Voice Acting: Experience an alt-history 1930s New York directly through the voices of its inhabitants. Learn their stories; sometimes funny, sometimes philosophical, usually tragic.
About Seismic Squirrel:
Seismic Squirrel is a talented and passionate team of both industry veterans and enthusiastic newcomers. We share a strong desire to tell fascinating stories supporting engaging gameplay mechanics.
Screenshots
9 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
This update focuses on several areas we've seen players discussing, including controller usability, inventory management, combat pacing, and overall game performance.
One of the biggest changes in this update is a new save file compression system. Saves are now significantly smaller and take up less Steam Cloud storage. Alongside this, we've continued optimising performance throughout the game, helping improve loading and startup times.
[p align="start"]We've also made several controller support improvements, streamlined several combat encounters, and added some quality-of-life improvements to inventory management.Patch Notes
Improved
Combat
Improved the look of the Aether Rat Transport vehicle with clearer primary and secondary colors.
Reduced the length of Dance Hall combat encounter.
Reduced the length of Luca Weapon Dealers combat encounter.
Improved opponent behaviour in Heist Escape combat encounter.
Reduced difficulty and improved opponent behaviour in bonus combat (available in the demo).
Increased scrap rewards from combat encounters.
Narrative & Scenes
Added new sounds to the Undersky Archive.
Added vehicles to Central Park.
Added crowds to Ellis Island.
Improved the appearance of the Dreamland vault door.
Improved how vehicles of different sizes appear in garages.
Improved character shadows in the Nations Crusade Dance Hall.
UI/UX
Added a new tutorial to better explain changing crew turn order.
Updated button layout when accepting combat and dialogue items and made them more consistent.
You can swap items of equal size by dragging and dropping them on each other.
You can double-click items in other inventories to add it to yours (e.g. buy from a store, or take a combat reward).
Improved item and status effect descriptions in certain ability tooltips.
Lots of controller support improvements!
Use joysticks and D-Pad to navigate tutorials.
Select UI elements in combat with the controller cursor.
Added clearer controller hotkeys to combat abilities.
Misc
Added compression to save files so that the game saves and loads faster and so that save files take up less space and cloud storage.
Reduced memory usage across the game for faster load and boot times.
Fixed
Combat
Fixed the direction of the Scout Rifle visual effects.
Narrative & Scenes
Fixed MacOS-specific progression issue at Marm’s Roadblock.
Fixed issue where some checkpoints would not automatically progress after they were completed.
Fixed issue where not all POIs in the Dreamland Garage displayed on first load.
Fixed an incorrect POI in the Abandoned Shipyard.
Fixed issue with being able to exit the Dreamland Hippodrome early.
Fixed an oversized POI at the Crumbling Island’s Edge.
Fixed the position of Mr Blanc’s cigarette.
Fixed newspaper reveal not triggering as expected in the Dance Hall.
Fixed issue where camera focused on the wrong spot at the Rebel HQ.
UI/UX
Fixed highlight not always appearing on the first dialogue option when using a controller.
Fixed issue with some storage compartments spilling out of their container.
Fixed not being able to access “Recover” button in Load Game screen on controller.
Fixed not being able to access “EULA” button on controller.
Removed Windowed mode options on Steam Deck (game always runs full screen).
Fixed issue with being able to exit vehicle customization early on controller.
Fixed issue with rapidly interacting with the Ferry at The Hole on controller.
Fixed issue with some store inventories overflowing on certain aspect ratios.
Fixed issue with control bindings while renaming save files during combat.
Fixed issue with dropdown options selecting automatically on controller.
Fixed issue with swapping compatible crew vehicles.
Fixed issue with interacting with selecting inventory items on controller.
Misc
Fixed the feedback form sometimes timing out and not sending feedback.
\ Fixed issue with keyboard not appearing in Big Picture Mode.
Fixed issue with Texture Quality settings not always persisting on reload depending on other graphics options.
Thanks to everyone who has continued sending us feedback since the release of the v1.1 update last week.
This is a smaller update focused on addressing a handful of progression issues, improving controller usability, and cleaning up some UI and dialogue edge cases reported by players.
Patch Notes
Improved
UI/UX
Made it easier to select buttons in the HUD and in combat using the controller cursor.
Fixed
Combat
Fixed issue where selecting a combat action didn’t show “Use here” immediately on controller.
Narrative & Scenes
Fixed progression issue with completing The Red Line mission.
Fixed progression issue with speaking to Sam at The Root Cellar.
Fixed issue with dialogue repeating after completing certain quest objectives.
Fixed issue with autoplay dialogue skipping lines when a mission objective completes.
Fixed a double loading screen after certain surprise encounters.
Fixed issue with a disconnected road on White Street island.
Fixed issue with incorrect character art appearing during a Nations Crusade encounter.
UI/UX
Fixed “Inspect” hotkey being visible at the wrong times in the inventory.
Fixed issue with the “Cancel” button in the Restore Control Defaults popup.
Thanks to everyone who’s continued sharing feedback since launch.
[p align="start"]We know that some players - particularly some on older machines or with limited RAM - have been experiencing performance issues or longer load times than we’d like.[p align="start"]Today’s update is a little different from our usual patches.[p align="start"]We’ve released a new optional Public Beta branch on Steam that includes a significant overhaul to how Aether & Iron manages and loads assets. In our internal testing, this has resulted in:Reduced memory usage
Faster load times
Better performance on lower-spec hardware
How to Opt-In
Right-click Aether & Iron in your Steam library.
Select Properties.
Select Game Versions & Betas.
Select \[public-beta] from the list.
To opt back out, you will return to the Game Versions menu and choose “Default Public Version”.
What We're Looking For
If you opt into the beta branch, we'd especially love to hear about:
Load times (faster? slower? the same?)
Stability and crashes
General combat and location performance
Any other issues you notice
You can share feedback in our Discord, the Steam Community Hub, or via the Feedback tab in-game.
Patch Notes
Improved
Misc
Improved loading times across all locations.
Reduced memory usage across all locations.
Thanks again to everyone continuing to play Aether & Iron and send through feedback and bug reports! Our latest update focuses on improving overall usability, alongside fixing several progression and combat issues reported by players.
[p align="start"]We’ve also made several localisation and UI adjustments to improve readability across supported languages.Patch Notes
Improved
Narrative & Scenes
Improved timing when cutting between epilogue scenes.
Reduced camera flashes at Quincy Park Terrace.
UI/UX
All tutorials can be viewed from the Pause Menu, regardless of whether they are unlocked.
Added clearer animation when losing HP due to dialogue choices.
Made changes to several UI labels to improve spacing in multiple languages.
Made it easier to toggle the “Move all to” overlay on and off.
Misc
Made several changes to dialogue translations based on player feedback.
Reduced the target for the Heavy Striker achievement.
Fixed
Combat
Fixed issue where hazards did not always update the cells they were targeting during each phase of the final combat encounter.
Fixed issue where vehicles could be knocked back into invalid cells during the final combat encounter.
Fixed issue with Aether Sludge Thrower weapon VFX not displaying correctly.
Narrative & Scenes
Fixed potential progression issue during the Memories Don’t Dance mission.
Fixed potential progression issue during the Pocket Full Of Stones mission.
Fixed incorrect POI highlight on Bluebell at Nations Crusade.
UI/UX
Fixed issue where some combat abilities referenced the wrong damage type.
Fixed issue where items could be ‘sold’ in Nellie’s Lab.
Fixed issue where items could not load correctly if placed in certain compartments.
Fixed issue where re-roll items would show on incorrect dialogue options if you saved and reloaded in the middle of a conversation.
Fixed issue where scrolling a dropdown list in settings caused incorrect positioning.
Misc
Fixed issue where the dialogue typewriter effect would sometimes not work when using a controller.
Fixed issue with reloading from auto saves during the Train Heist could skip past some combat intro conversations.
Thanks again to everyone continuing to play Aether & Iron and share feedback. This update introduces a new way to play for those who want higher stakes, alongside a range of accessibility options, UI improvements, and new sound effects.
We’ve also addressed a few lingering issues around achievements, dialogue flow, and item rewards.
Patch Notes
New
Enabled the “Single Save” modifier for campaigns, if you want to play with only a single save. No save scumming!
Added a new option to the settings to enable/disable opaque roads during combat, which helps to reduce motion.
Improved
Narrative & Scenes
Added new emotes and reactions to conversations in the Root Cellar.
Added alarm sound effects when escaping The Tomb.
Added new sound effects when speaking to Popper.
Added new sound effects when speaking to Banger.
Added a pause when playing silent dialogue lines during autoplay so it doesn’t immediately skip to the next line.
Improved the quality of the safehouse environment when playing on “Low” graphics settings.
UI/UX
Made it harder to delete your campaigns. The “Delete” button has been removed, and a campaign will automatically delete itself when you delete all save files within it.
Conversations now pause when receiving items and when morale changes, so there’s time to view notifications in the conversation history.
Added a warning pop-up when trying to save and out of disk space.
Misc
Improved the starting loadout of Benny’s vehicle.
Fixed
Combat
Fixed issue where available combat actions were updating slightly later than when a new turn starts.
Narrative & Scenes
Fixed dialogue flow issue when inspecting Mr Blanc’s files in the Hidden Room.
Fixed issue where you could receive multiple Moonshine Casks during Good To The Last Drop.
UI/UX
Fixed incorrect icon showing for the “Respec” button in the Talent Screen.
Misc
Fixed issue with main mission-related achievements not firing when expected.
Fixed some POIs at the International Docks that were not translated.
Thanks again to everyone who’s been playing Aether & Iron and continuing to share feedback with us. We’ve been working through some player-reported issues - particularly around progression and UX clarity - and have our latest patch ready to share.
This update focuses on fixing several cases where players could get stuck when migrating from the demo to the full game, improving combat responsiveness, and tightening up UI clarity and a few localisation issues. There are also a handful of quality-of-life improvements based directly on community feedback.
We’ll keep the updates coming as we continue improving the game.
Patch Notes
New
Added a new option to the settings to enable/disable pausing the game when defocusing/tabbing out.
Improved
Combat
Mass Repair now requires that you confirm your target before it activates (like most other combat actions).
Improved the timing of sound effects and visual effects for several weapons.
Narrative & Scenes
You can now earn morale with heroes regardless of whether they are in the crew during certain conversations at the Root Cellar.
Updated the character art for Mr Blanc to improve consistency.
UI/UX
Made it clearer when the game can no longer save due to running out of disk space.
Updated and improved some tutorial videos.
Misc
Updated the logos shown on the splash screen to include third-party tools.
Increased mission rewards when completing The Heist.
Fixed
Combat
Fixed issue where available combat actions were updating slightly later than when a new turn starts.
Narrative & Scenes
Fixed an issue where some players were getting stuck and unable to leave The Hole during The Last Goodbye.
Fixed an issue where some players were getting stuck not being able to speak with Cress in the Root Cellar.
Fixed an issue where some players were getting stuck not being able to speak with Cress in Cress' Garage when migrating from the demo to the full game.
Fixed issue where some players were getting stuck not being able to speak with Alex and Maria at the Pier 9 Workpost when migrating from the demo to the full game.
Fixed issue where some players were getting stuck when returning to Astoria Bay after Act 2.
Fixed issue with a missing codex entry in Dreamland.
Fixed oversized Pandemonium Security guard in the Pandemonium Lobby.
Fixed issue with dialogue repeating itself during certain conversations when skip was enabled.
UI/UX
Fixed issue where some UI labels were appearing in English when they shouldn’t have.
Fixed/clarified incorrect wording of the “Opt Out Of Analytics” option in the settings.
Fixed/clarified inconsistency in Machine Gun ability description.
Fixed issue with selling items received from Nellie’s research.
Fixed not being able to scroll vehicle customization parts list on controller.
Fixed issue with some particles remaining visible out of bounds on ultrawide screens.
Misc
Fixed “Smuggling Legend” achievement not triggering at the right time.
Fixed some instances of mismatched text and voiceover.
Fixed missing radio effect on some voice lines.
Fixed issue with continuing save files in permadeath mode.
Fixed missing vehicle movement sounds when approaching The Well.
Thanks to everyone who’s been playing Aether & Iron in our launch week! We’ve been working through your feedback and have another patch ready to share with you.
[p align="start"]This update focuses on a mix of combat tuning, performance improvements, and a number of UI, localisation, and bug fixes based on issues players have mentioned.[p align="start"]We’ll keep sharing updates as we continue improving the game.Patch Notes
[p align="start"]ImprovedCombat
Changed the starting positions of enemies in the Hippodrome.
Optimised performance in some combat scenes.
Balance changes:
Slightly reduced Eli's health and the number of minions.
Slightly reduced Dufresne health and enemy AP in encounter #2.
Narrative & Scenes
Added ‘loudspeaker’ effect to some voiceover lines.
The Shipyard Memorial changes visually during conversations.
UI/UX
Updated “Evade” talent graphic.
Combat
Fixed issue where some Nations Crusade encounters loaded into a black screen.
Fixed issue loading into the final White Street Train Heist encounter.
Fixed the orientation of the trail effects when firing the Scout Rifle.
Fixed issue with pausing and unpausing during combat showing the grid.
Narrative & Scenes
Fixed Library Nook POI highlight.
Fixed issue with sprite layering at the Pier 9 North Workpost.
Fixed empty player choice at The Well.
Fixed being able to sell blueprints to Tajana.
Fixed missing characters at the War-Torn Mission.
Fixed jumbled traversal lines when travelling to Spritzenhaus.
UI/UX
Fixed issue with ‘customize vehicle colors' scroll not stretching on some aspect ratios.
Fixed AP cost of abilities spilling out of container during vehicle customization.
Fixed issue with selecting “Return To Menu” on controller when completing the demo.
Fixed tint/overlay in combat displaying when it shouldn’t on controller.
Fixed issue with “play time” being inaccurate for save files.
Fixed vehicle part map extending off the screen on certain aspect ratios.
Misc
Fixed issue where some cutscene subtitles are not appearing in the correct language.
Fixed banners at White Street Military Parade being slightly transparent.
Fixed issue with “Hotrod Obsessed” achievement triggering incorrectly.
Fixed issue with “High Roller” achievement triggering incorrectly.
Fixed incorrect translations for the Morale tutorial in French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Fixed issue with saves sometimes being out of order when manually saving.
Thanks to everyone who’s jumped into Aether & Iron and had the opportunity to fall in love with both the characters and world that we’ve built. The passion and engagement we’ve seen from the community has broken through all of our expectations as a team, and we couldn’t be more excited by the response to Aether & Iron.
[p align="start"]With our first patch, v1.0.159, we wanted to address the reports of save issues popping up for a small number of players and are digging into what’s causing it. This is our main focus right now, and the team’s working to lock down a solid fix. This patch contains a solution to allow players to repopulate their missing saves, and we believe we’ve identified the main culprit behind the issue and are working on a long term, stable solution for the near future.[p align="start"]We’ll keep sharing updates as we make progress and once we’ve got that fix ready.Patch Notes
New
For any players encountering save file issues: added a “Recover” button in the Load Screen that will re-check all of your save files and display any missing ones (note: this may take a while to run).
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41578599/1f829c4ce9c84486896ca4025f00c85c59e5b95c.png"]
Fixed
UI/UX
Fixed a few instances of missing translations for POIs.
Fixed issue with purchasing and then immediately customizing a vehicle.
Fixed missing POI in Dreamland Garage.
Misc
Fixed issues causing some player’s save files to not appear in the load screen.
Demo Update v0.3.479
Quality of Life, Combat Tweaks, and More!
Thank you to everyone who's played the Aether & Iron demo so far and sent in feedback!! Today we pushed out our first demo update with loads of quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, accessibility options, and several additional languages to bring Aether & Iron to even more players.
We hope these improvements smooth out your ride down the Aetherway!
📢 Indicates changes inspired by community feedback.
🆕 New
Civilian vehicle variety added: 2x1 Buses and 3x1 Trucks now appear in combat to create more interesting encounters
New language support for:
Spanish (Spain)
Spanish (LATM)
French
German
Polish
Russian
Brazilian Portuguese
Simplified Chinese
Controller rumble now supported!
Contraband preview: a new tooltip now shows what you’re about to hand over.
Auto-closing bark timer toggle added to Settings.
Bulk move to Stash: You can now move items in bulk to the Stash from the “Move All To” utility menu in the inventory.
📢 Combat speed setting added so you can fine-tune the pacing to your taste.
📢 Reduce Background Motion toggle now available in Settings.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41578599/1a9152934fc47323ada796440b8c6c6980a12553.gif"]
🔧 Improved
⚔️ Combat & Balance
AP limit and AP balancing revisited for clearer expectations and pacing.
Hero defeat flow tightened; heroes are auto-restored and given an option to instant repair on return to The Hole.
Hazards of the same type/turn are combined into a single entry in the turn list.
Bootleg Turn and movement/jump previews updated; missing jump lines addressed.
Combat encounter objective text standardized for consistency.
Control is returned to the player (and AI units) faster after ramming, improving flow.
🖥️ UI/UX
“Stash” can be selected as a destination from the Move To menu at The Hole.
Part equip/unequip UX made clearer; warnings appear if a part doesn’t fit.
Turn list auto-scrolls to the active combatant.
Update the 'Welcome' popup in the demo
Combat ability description copy pass (consistency + readability).
“Civilians” have been renamed to “Bystanders” in combat.
Settings tabs can now be scrolled, as there are more settings in them!
🛠️ Misc
Campaign sorting order now matches your save file sorting order, so your most recently updated campaign appears at the top.
Repairing vehicles at The Hole is now free.
🐞 Fixed
⚔️ Combat
Fixed zoom-out lock after lane splits.
Reinforcement Incoming tiles no longer display as guaranteed-destruction warnings.
Combat no longer ends before all actions/SFX/FX are complete.
Skip to Player Turn no longer delayed by certain NPC attacks.
The missing movement line when jumping between grids has been fixed.
“Move All To” on the combat rewards screen works as expected.
Fixed an issue that could cause Gia’s action bar to disappear for a turn.
🎭 Narrative & Scenes
Fixed an issue where the wrong character would highlight during dialogue, in some instances.
Fixed the black zone in the camera on Percy's zoom-in in Cress's garage.
Fixed room panning not working in The Hole on narrow aspect ratios.
Room panning works correctly on 4:3 and narrower aspect ratios.
Skip-to-choice no longer triggers Parade post-cutscene dialogue early.
KO lane display issues addressed.
🖥️ UI/UX
Select SFX no longer fires when new options appear in dialogue.
Fixed various breadcrumb and minor UI inconsistencies.
Fixed an issue where inventory SFX would play louder on first open.
📢 Fixed an issue where the feedback screen would get wider when typing.
📝 Known Issues
There are still instances of missing and/or mismatched VO.
Thank you again for supporting our development by sending feedback, reporting bugs, and sharing your kind words with our team. We're listening!!
If you have something to report, you can use the in-game form, visit our Community Hub here on Steam, or join our Discord.
Now get back out there!! Defeat some bad guys and smuggle some contraband in the name of resistance! ːsteamhappyː
- Gina
Current Release
Build 24529157
Uploaded Aug 05, 2026
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System Requirements
How to Install
AetherAndIron.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
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