On March 9, 2022 Iron Lung was released on steam by David Szymanski. The game was initially priced at $6. The game did have an increase in price in 2023 to $8 however in early 2026 the game was on sale on steam for $3.99. The game is fairly short indie horror game but basically you are a convict sent into a blood ocean in a submarine called the Iron Lung. You are welded shut inside this submarine which means you cannot see anything outside. The only thing that helps you navigate this blood ocean is a map provided, proximity sensors and the controls of the submarine. There is also a camera that lets you take photos that lets you see your surroundings for just one image. With the things provided to you, you must navigate the blood ocean and go to certain points in the map to take pictures of different anomalies. 

In preparation to watch the film on the 4th of February, I played the video game the day before because it was only $3.99 on steam, and I must say, I quite enjoyed the game. It’s a very short game and you can complete it in under an hour. I found myself to not be bored at all throughout my play through even though it is just you in a submarine looking at maps and coordinates. I did find myself having trouble with how to navigate the submarine at first but I actually just clicked on Markiplier’s play through for like one minute to see how he was doing it and then I was able to navigate it fairly easily. It didn’t take me long to complete the game myself and I was impressed with how engaged with the game I was with just navigating a submarine.

Now the game itself isn’t very straightforward with lore and story, but once you explore the game more and do more research, you realize that there is in fact a lot of lore to the game. The story itself is actually very interesting. The lore is never really given to you straight out of the gate in the game. You are given a message in the beginning of the game that gives you a short explanation of what the universe is like and what you are supposed to do. After this the only way to get more lore on this game is through the terminal that is in the submarine next to where you take pictures. Through this terminal you have to find keywords that will unlock certain files and if you get the word right then you will receive information about what it is you put. Some key words that will work in the terminal are blood ocean, the quiet rapture, iron lung, and many more. Through this terminal is where we get most of the lore behind this universe. So let’s talk about it. 

The earliest information about the universe is in 1992 when the first human colony was established on Mars. This leads the humans to adapt to a new calendar called the EIC(Epoch Of Interplanetary Colonization). There is also another type of calendar called the IMC(Interstellar Martian Calendar) that was based on the rotation of mars rather than the EIC that was based on the rotation of the earth. EIC was the most popular calendar used by people so 1992 became 0 EIC. For centuries people flourished in space. They lived on different planets and on space stations, satellites, and ships. They were like this until 2349(357 EIC) when out of nowhere in a blink of an eye all the habitable planets and all stars vanished without a single trace.

What remained were uninhabitable moons and asteroids. And the only humans to survive this event were people on satellites or space ships. This event would later be known as the quiet rapture. After the quiet rapture, the consolidation of iron(c.o.i)  formed which was a brotherhood that included three space stations and two spacecrafts. At the time of the entry from the terminal that provides us this information about the C.O.I there were a number of 257 people in the C.O.I. There is also Eden which is the largest space station to exist after the quiet rapture and it used to be the space station for Mars. There are 468 people in Eden and their martian patriotism and independence marked Eden as a threat to the C.O.I. During the 6 years that pass after the quiet rapture, tensions rise between Eden and the C.O.I. This eventually leads to an explosive climax between  Eden and the C.O.I in a 9 day battle on a space station called the filament station.

This battle was left unresolved after people from Eden decided to sabotage the reactor of the station which resulted in a critical breach that left filament station uninhabitable due to radiation. There were many people from Eden taken as prisoners during the battle and are now convicts in the conviction realization which is a program made by the C.O.I in order for convicts to repay for their crimes and eventually integrate themselves into C.O.I society.They pay for their crimes by carrying out tasks that are beneficial for the C.O.I, which leads to the task the convict we play as in the game is carrying out. The convict you play as is sent into moon at-5 which is one of the two moons controlled by the C.O.I that is known to have a blood ocean, the other being called moon z-8.You are sent into the ocean in a submarine called the sm-13, nicknamed the iron lung. While being in the submarine we can read entries left by other convicts that were down in the ocean before you. In these entries the other convict explains how the iron lung is just another burner sub that is never expected to resurface.

We also find out that at one point they were making submarines that were meant to come back, one being called the sm-8. The sm-8 didn’t have convicts in them, they had actual scientists that were studying the ocean with hopes of gathering information about it and bringing it back to the surface. We find out that the sm-8 never made it back up and the previous convict describes seeing the submarine broken into pieces as if something alive broke it apart. We do eventually see what broke the sm-8 into pieces because that same monster eventually breaches the iron lung at the end of the game, killing the current convict.

There is a message displayed after beating the game that explains how the expedition of sm-13 left more questions than answers and that they never recovered any of the photos you took while in the ocean. They also explain how sm-13 was also broken into pieces by what seems like a live beast. The universe is dying but yet the humans that are left still have hope for it to get better. This is basically the end of the story with the only thing being that the prisoners taken from the battle of filament station will be finished with their conviction realization program and be integrated into the C.O.I society by 2373 which is three years after the events of the game. 

Now Mark Fishbach, best known as Markiplier, first played the game in May of 2022. Markiplier ended up liking the game so much that he announced that he would be adapting the game into a film. He announced this on April 21, 2023. He also announced a few days later that filming had already wrapped on the film. Markiplier Wrote, Directed, starred in, and even self financed the film himself. The creator of the game David Szymanski was involved in the project as a consultant and provided screenwriting assistance.

On December 5th of 2025, Markiplier released the final trailer for Iron Lung and announced that the film would be finally released in theaters on  January 30,2026.Well it seems he succeeded alright. With a budget of only $3 million dollars, Iron Lung has shocked the world of cinema by making $21.7 million dollars in its first weekend. This means it earned 7x its budget. At first it was only supposed to be in a few theaters but they were able to get it into thousands of theaters across the world.  This has absolutely shook Hollywood as Markiplier has shown that you can in fact make successful films without the help of Hollywood, inspiring indie filmmakers across the internet and the world to go out and make their movies. 

After finishing the game and researching more into the lore, I watched the film the next day, so let me share what I thought about the film. I thought the movie was really well done. The crew was able to construct a beautiful set of the submarine and really were accurate to the video game. The story itself isn’t exactly like the video game but I was really impressed and intrigued with how they changed the story in the film. They added some things that left me thinking about the movie after getting home from watching it. I’m really excited to jump in for a more detailed analysis of the film. Markiplier’s acting also felt a little weird at first as I grew up watching him as the very energetic and goofy Markiplier but as the film progressed I really started to see Markiplier as Simon and not Markiplier which I really enjoyed. However I can see how some people might be bored in its first act.

I kind of feel that if you haven’t played the game or know any of it’s lore then maybe you won’t enjoy it as much as opposed to if you did. Which is kind of the case for many video game adaptations. Throughout the first act I feel like they really wanted to set in how alone you can feel in the submarine and the ambiance of the ocean and I can see how some people might have been bored by that, I on the other hand was not. The film’s second and third act crank up the intensity and deliver really good scenes. The cinematography throughout the film is also pretty good. You are seeing the same thing basically throughout the movie but we see many different and unique angles on them so it doesn’t ever feel repetitive at least for me. Overall the film left me very impressed and glad to see it was able to work out for Markiplier as I have been waiting for this movie to come out since he first announced it 3 years ago.  

The game Iron lung is a good horror game with a very simple premise of controlling a submarine but it manages to grab your attention up until the final minute of game play. The story and lore of the game itself is very intriguing and I have had a blast taking a dive into it. I had never bothered to learn the lore or play the game right up until I knew I was going to watch the movie. And the movie did not disappoint. The movie really impressed me from the story, acting, cinematography, set design, and soundtrack. The crew did amazing. The movie adds a lot of new potential lore to the story of iron lung and I am excited to dive into what people think about the movie and how the theories on what it could all mean. If you have been on the fence deciding whether or not you should go watch the movie, go watch it. And if you want to make a further effort to enhance your experience watching the movie, then play the game if you can as it is only $3.99 on steam right now but the sale might have ended so it might be back to the normal price of $7.99. Playing the game really makes you see how they were trying to make you feel isolated in the submarine.