A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of playing a pre-release demo of Aether & Iron at PAX East 2026. As I detailed in those impressions, I came away impressed. I was then lucky enough to receive a code for the game upon launch, and hungrily dived into the noir tale.
After 20 hours of narrative rocking, cars interlocking, and relationship jockeying, I can confidently say that Aether & Iron makes good on that early promise. The story maintains its energy, as Gia finds herself embroiled in the political wars between barons. The characters are bright and colorful, and the world doesn’t disappoint either, despite some unfortunate technical stumbles.
A Novel Approach
I’ll let a few words from my preview impressions set the stage:
You play as Gia, a down-on-her-luck smuggler with a sharp nose and an empty wallet [living in the futuristic, floating world of New York City]. Desperate for work, she accepts what seems like a routine job: Bring an Uppers citizen to the Lowers. It’s a cheap job, sure, but success means finding her way back into the good graces of the crime lords she must work with, especially after an unnamed incident in the recent past has made her persona non grata.
The job goes south almost immediately: a client who stands out like a sore thumb, a briefcase full of desperately desired research, and a black-hatted assassin out for blood. After a car chase and a run-in with the police, Gia and her client Nellie find themselves stuck together to get back what has been lost: for Gia, her beloved car, and for Nellie, a briefcase of research that may be the key to keeping New York afloat.
And that’s just the beginning. From there, the stakes get grander and grander, culminating in a series of events that allow Gia to decide the fate of New York itself.
Aether & Iron’s narrative is told through a series of novel-like sections, akin to a Citizen Sleeper or Disco Elysium. However, unlike most other novel-style games, all sections are fully voice-acted. Everything from the smallest interactions with checkpoint police to the largest monologues get their time to shine. Rhiannon Moushall is amazing as Gia, giving real life to the purple-prose narrative. Special shout-outs also to Dominica Ivey and Alice Himora for their characters Cress and Sophie; their performances stand out among an already amazing cast.
Roll for Choices
Player choice is naturally woven into Aether & Iron thanks to the ability to roll skill checks during conversations. These checks operate under three main umbrella skills (Hustle, Smarts, and Brass) with further subskills underneath those. Brass, for instance, is broken down into Enforcer, Grease Monkey, and Daredevil. These skills can be individually leveled, with each level providing either conversation bonuses or new skills to use in combat. For example: Level one of Enforcer provides a +1 to all Enforcer rolls, while level two provides the ability to turn your car around in combat and use your forward-facing skills backward.
Through the course of Aether & Iron, I found myself specializing Gia into her more cunning and soft skills (primarily in the Hustle tree), and using the benefits from my squadmates to fill the other areas. By the end, I was getting a +8 bonus to all Hustle-based rolls, meaning those choices were relatively trivial to pass. While it didn’t take away from the narrative experience itself, I do wish I hadn’t become quite so powerful in my choices by the end. The risk of failure was deep in the rearview by the time credits rolled.
Enter the Grid
As I mentioned in my preview, combat in Aether & Iron takes place exclusively in vehicles on a grid as Gia and her companions race in the Upper and Lower cities. You have one objective per encounter (either survive for a set amount of time or destroy a specific enemy) and are free to navigate the space as you see fit. Players are given a set number of actions in a turn. Moving forward costs more points vs. pumping the brakes, so you have to be wise with your positioning. Road hazards serve as dangerous obstables, but also as great opportunities to surprise your opponents — a strategy I used to great benefit during various encounters.
While combat expands slightly as the story progresses, the main hooks stay the same. Your tactics slowly expand thanks to the ability to customize your party’s fleet of vehicles, which in turn allows access to new roles and classes. From the nimble damage dealer to the beefy, supporting tank, Aether & Iron’s combat flexes its adaptability muscles early.
Unlike narrative skill checks, which quickly became a breeze, combat will test your mettle. An early-game difficulty spike (around the first real boss) was particularly intimidating: I went from cruising through combat with nary a thought to strategically sacrificing my own characters to create chain-reaction crashes of massive damage. I also found myself hitting game over and having to reset. Fights get punishing, and players will need to carefully upgrade their cars in specific directions to succeed.
In all, I enjoyed the combat more than I expected after my brief preview. The puzzle-like nature and progression systems work well together, and I had fun finding new ways to smash cars into each other. Some systems can be a hindrance, especially when it comes to certain positioning on attacks, but overall, Aether & Iron’s combat is a worthwhile time — at least, in moments when it all works.
A Visual Time
The hand-drawn artwork of Aether & Iron plays second only to the game’s majestic narrative. I found myself in awe of the skyscapes of New York, from the pulsing greens of aether vehicles to the burning boxes of White Street. Characters pop from the backgrounds, each distinctive in design. I counted six or seven different times my girlfriend commented on wanting various parts of Gia’s outfit.
For all of its positives, however, Aether & Iron is undone by some severe technical issues. My time was heavily marred by visual glitches, including large amounts of screen-tearing during movement, stuttering during combat, menus that refused to load, and many other optimization problems. While they did not ruin my overall experience, it was bad enough that multiple times I found myself muttering at the mess before me. Aether & Iron is a truly beautiful game to look at: It’s a shame that much of that beauty was hidden behind technical snafus.
Aether & Iron is the first game by Seismic Squirrel (who worked in partnership with Chaos Theory Games, the developers of Crab God), and perhaps these technical hiccups are the signs of a debut studio with a relatively small team. Although there were no serious issues involving saves or crashes, the general instability did leave a poor taste.
Final Thoughts: Noir Struggle
If you can look past the technical struggles of Aether & Iron, you will find a gripping narrative fueled by colorful characters and an equally colorful world. Gia’s journey to find who she wants to be, and what she wants to do, gripped me from start to finish. The side characters are lovely and diverse, representing different walks of life throughout New York. The combat is fun and interactive, even if surprisingly difficult in moments.
However, the visual glitches, slow loading times, and catatonic menus can easily distract from what should be a complete package. On the one hand, I cannot recommend Aether & Iron enough; on the other hand, let this be a cautionary tale about the importance of optimization.
In the end, Aether & Iron is an experience worth having. Just know that nothing and no one is flawless in New York City.
Score: 8.1/10
Aether & Iron, developed by Seismic Squirrel and Chaos Theory Games and self-published by Seismic Squirrel, released on March 17, 2026, for PC and Mac. MSRP: $24.99. Version reviewed: PC.
Disclaimer: A review code was provided by the developer.
Gary is a jack-of-all-trades video game enthusiast based in Boston, MA. A semi-professional fighting game player, even less professional Apex Legends player, and even less professional adult, he spends most of his time poking at strange indie gems and reading about the need for more diverse voices in gaming criticism. He invites anyone to recommend anything he's missed in the gaming world via Twitter or BlueSky, where he can found under the username @grtnpwrfl. When he isn't spending his time playing games, Gary is an avid New England Patriots fan and frequent hiker.
