PAX East 2025: ‘Aether & Iron’ Preview

While PAX East 2025 started with a bang and I got to see a lot of great games, panels, and people from the community, a game I got to check out early stood out from the crowd. Aether & Iron from Seismic Squirrel caught my attention quickly with its premise, art style and game design.

An Alternate 1930s New York

Aether & Iron is set in an alternate 1930s New York that has been transformed into a vertical city after the discovery of Aether, an anti-gravity tech that fuels a New York that sprawls upwards instead of across the ground and opens up power struggles as the world, and New York’s elite, fight over control of the technology.

Taking on the role of Gia, a smuggler down on her luck, I was thrust into a film noir version of New York that reminded me of Bioshock Infinite mixed with Chinatown and a sprinkling of The 5th Element. Gia is a wisecracking tough cookie who lives her life and career on the edge of her seat with her car and guts guiding the way.

Strong Narrative Format

The demo started with Gia meeting a low-level boss who gives her a chance at a job. The sequence showcases the game’s strong narrative format. The game is fully voiced and I was quite impressed with the spoken dialogue as Gia faced off against the mysterious Mr. Blanc.

Much as in Disco Elysium and similar games, the meat of the experience is in exploration, dialogue, and trying to score more information or loot by testing your skills and wits against others. On-screen dice rolls pop up leveraging skills that can be grown and enhanced to decide whether you succeed or fail at one of these encounters.

Multiple Avenues to Choose

What impressed me was that even in failure the story could continue, though fewer perks or less information is shared by the game, making further decisions trickier. Oftentimes, there were multiple avenues to choose from. Meet a throng of menacing cabbies? Well I could either intimidate or wit-talk them; a bribe was also an option.

These varied choices made the game feel a lot more organic despite it being a pretty linear narrative experience according to the developers on hand. The characters I met were also very interesting and distinct, further bringing me into the story.

Combat

As the game progressed I got into the combat aspect, which is entirely from the confines of your vehicle as you travel between zones. Battle outside of that is handled via dialogue or skill rolls.

In this combat mode your car is in the skyline, and enemies, other cars and obstacles all get in the way as turns occur. Positioning for attacks and to avoid obstacles is key to success, and I found the mechanic fairly interesting but hope they don’t overuse it or add a lot of modifiers and new aspects so it does not get tedious.

Had Me Hooked

I am a massive film noir fan and loved the Bioshock series, so the vibe of Aether & Iron really spoke to me. The developers are really passionate about the game and the art, voice acting, and narrative I saw so far and the music all had me hooked as I tried it out.

Aether is one to keep an eye on as it progresses through development. They are shooting for a release later this year, and Aether & Iron can be wishlisted on Steam as you wait for the release.