The ongoing search for the lost Titan submarine has led some indie horror games, such as Iron Lung by David Szymanski, to see an uptick in sales numbers. The OceanGate submersible, which was carrying five passengers, lost contact with its control center on June 18, just a couple of hours into its dive to the Titanic shipwreck off the coast of Newfoundland. Despite a search that has lasted four days, the submersible has still not been found, and at the time of writing, it’s believed there is only an hour or two of oxygen remaining inside.In March 2022, developer David Szymanski released a short horror indie game called Iron Lung, which takes players on a claustrophobic journey in a tiny, rusty submarine. Instead of regular waters, however, the vessel is traveling through an ocean of blood on an alien moon after an unspecified event has ended the natural world. The game has simplistic gameplay but successfully creates a growing sense of fear and isolation.The creator of Iron Lung has shared an image on Twitter showing that, beginning on June 19, the game's sales have nearly tripled. “This feels so wrong,” Szymanski said and confirmed in the comments that the uptick is due to the Titan submersible's disappearance. This is supported by the recent reviews the game has received on Steam, with one person stating that they played the game with a Logitech F710 gamepad, referring to the video game controller used to steer the Titanic submarine. Other comments are in a similar tone.
Iron Lung isn’t the only indie game that has received more attention since June 18. One of the developers of Full Fathom shared a similar sentiment on social media after the oceanic survival horror game was added to an increasing number of wishlists. “Being associated with the Titanic submarine disaster is quite off-putting,” Monad tweeted. “It’s the whole benefiting from people’s (almost certain) deaths that makes it feel weird.” Like Iron Lung, Full Fathom puts gamers in a submarine that is slowly falling apart as it drifts through the ocean, playing on people’s thalassophobia.
While acknowledging that some of the jokes are amusing, Szymanski explained in a later tweet that he had created Iron Lung to be the “most nightmarish thing I could think of, and knowing real people are in that situation right now is pretty horrific.” It is understandably an uncomfortable situation to be in. On the one hand, these indie game developers are seeing sales numbers that they may have never expected, but the circumstances that ushered in those sales put a dampener on any joy they might feel.
Iron Lung was recently announced to be getting a film adaptation, due out sometime in 2023. The movie will star YouTube celebrity Markiplier, which likely would already have drawn a large audience. Its unintentional tie to the plight of the Titan submarine will probably attract even more viewers.
Iron Lung is currently available on PC.
Source: Steam