Frequently asked questions

The base game is a single-player experience — you crew the whole turret yourself. Co-operative play is the most requested feature by a wide margin, and the developers have discussed it in their community Q&A, but it isn’t part of the core game at launch. A community-made multiplayer mod has been in the works on the official Discord, so the most likely route to playing with a friend near release is a mod rather than a built-in mode.

For anything official on co-op or a sequel, the game’s Steam page and the developers’ Discord are the places it would be announced.

VR is one of the most-upvoted requests — the cockpit, the levers and the hands-on instruments feel tailor-made for it — but there’s no officially confirmed VR mode yet. A player has already published a basic community VR mod, so interest is clearly there; treat full VR as “asked for, not promised” until the team says otherwise.

IRON NEST is a Windows build. There’s no native Mac version, and Steam Deck compatibility hasn’t been officially rated yet — both come up regularly from players but neither is confirmed. The platform icons and the Deck compatibility badge on the game’s Steam store page carry the current, authoritative status.

IRON NEST walks you through the core gunnery loop across 17 operations:

• Calibration Fire (Tutorial)
• Fire & Light (Campaign)
• Liberation (Tutorial)
• Counter-Battery (Campaign)
• Iron Road (Campaign)
• Siege of Cartagena (Campaign)
• The Gorge (Campaign)
• Rock of Gibraltar (Tutorial)
• Dead Reckoning (Campaign)
• Fire on call (Campaign)
• High Tide (Campaign)
• Blind fire (Campaign)
• Phantom Battery (Campaign)
• Final Harvest (Campaign)
• White shells (Campaign)
• Skirmish — Challenge: Counter battery timer (Challenge)
• Skirmish — Chill: Uncontested Front (Chill)

That’s 17 campaign operations running from the first calibration shoot to the four endings of White Shells, plus 0 skirmishes — a relaxed free-fire mode and a timed counter-battery challenge. See the missions section for each briefing.

A release date and price haven’t been locked in here — those are the developers’ to announce, and the game’s Steam page is the only reliable source. Wishlisting it there is the simplest way to be told the moment either is confirmed.

The campaign is an authored, scripted narrative — High Command feeds you orders and the operations play out in a set sequence, rather than a procedurally generated or branching story. The writing (“High Command to Iron Nest… Glory to Castile!”) is a big part of the appeal, but your choices change how a mission is executed, not which mission comes next.

Because it has a hidden second phase most players don’t realise is solvable. You’re meant to triangulate the first batteries from your spotters, then use the Scout Plane and star shells to find the hidden ones — and every battery you destroy extends the timer. The full method is in the Counter-Battery walkthrough.

No. The Nest has no unload control — no eject, no breech to reopen, no way to swap a rammed round for a different type. Once a shell is rammed, the gun holds it until you fire it or the fire mission ends, at which point the gun is cleared and your powder charges reset automatically.

So the only way out of a wrong round is to send it downrange and load again — but that is not free. Shots fired, average accuracy and kills-per-shot are all scored, so a dumped shell can cost you a medal even if it lands harmlessly. Full sequence in the how-to guides.

The Nest’s traverse is read in degrees, measured clockwise from true north. Many players have asked for a mils readout (it’s finer, and standard in real gunnery); until that exists, the mils & degrees reference converts between the two and explains how bearings are measured.

A spotter gives you a bearing and distance to the target from their position, not yours — you have to convert that into a bearing and range from the Nest, then pick the powder charge. The firing solution planner does the geometry for you: plot the spotter and target, and it reads out your bearing, range and charge.