Field guide · eight games compared

Alternate history FPS games, and where each one changes history

By Whale Development Studios, the studio behind Iron Curtain Call. Published 5 November 2026. Every date, price, platform and demo below was checked on the US Steam store on 6 November 2026; the sources are listed at the end.

Iron Curtain Call: tin soldier robots in red uniforms and space helmets guard a tipped over rocket on the Moon, the Earth rising behind them — Iron Curtain Call, chapter 10, One Small Step. A real gameplay frame.

The short answer

A shooter whose story starts from a changed past.

An alternate history shooter is a first person shooter that asks what would have happened if the past had gone another way. Wikipedia defines alternate history as a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events happen differently than they did in reality. This guide covers first person shooters only, and sorts them by where each story changes history.

The names to know are Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, where the Nazis won the Second World War, Iron Storm, where the first world war never ended, and Atomic Heart, an alternate Soviet Union with a robot uprising. Prey runs an accelerated Space Race, and Homefront: The Revolution has North Korea occupy the United States. BioShock Infinite is arguable, and the guide says why. Iron Curtain Call is ours: in an alternate 1965 humanity ran out of soldiers, so World War III is run by a customer service AI and fought by its wind up tin robots. Its demo is free on Steam.

Four of the eight had a free demo on Steam on 6 November 2026: Iron Curtain Call, Wolfenstein II, Prey and Atomic Heart. The Iron Curtain Call demo is Mission 1 and has no parry; the parry comes with the full game on 11 March 2027.

At a glance

Eight shooters, and where history changes.

Checked on the US Steam store and the games’ Wikipedia articles on 6 November 2026; the history column uses the words of whichever of the two states it. Prices are list prices in US dollars before any sale; Steam sets its own prices in other countries. Grouped, not ranked: ours first, then roughly by the era each story changes.
Game	Where history changes	How it plays	Free demo on Steam	US price	Out
Iron Curtain CallOur game	An alternate 1965: humanity ran out of soldiers, so World War III is run by a customer service AI and fought by wind up tin robots	Single player first person shooter; fast and close range, drawn as a 1930s rubber hose cartoon	Yes, free: Mission 1, about 15 to 20 minutes	Not priced yet	11 March 2027Free demo since 28 October 2026
Iron Storm	World War I never ended: Wikipedia sets the game in 1964, the 50th year of the war	First person shooter with stealth and puzzles; Steam lists single player and multiplayer	No	$2.99	8 May 2014First released in 2002
Wolfenstein: The New Order	The Nazis won the Second World War: Wikipedia says an alternate history 1960s Europe; Steam says an alternate 1960s ruled by an enemy that changed history	Single player first person shooter across Europe, with a resistance cell	No	$19.99	19 May 2014
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus	After the same Nazi victory: Steam says America, 1961, and Wikipedia calls it an alternate history	Single player first person shooter in Nazi controlled America	Yes, free	$39.99	26 October 2017
Atomic Heart	Wikipedia: an alternate history version of the Soviet Union in the 1950s, first a retrofuturistic utopia, then a robot uprising	Single player first person shooter; robots, mutants and a power glove	Yes, free	$59.99	20 February 2023
Prey	Wikipedia: an alternate timeline with an accelerated Space Race, where the Soviet Union meets aliens in orbit in 1958 and Kennedy survives an assassination attempt	Single player first person shooter and immersive sim on a space station	Yes, free	$29.99	4 May 2017
Homefront: The Revolution	Wikipedia: an alternate timeline in which the digital revolution of the 1970s happened in North Korea, which later occupies the United States	Open world first person shooter, a guerrilla war; Steam lists single player, multiplayer and co op	No	$19.99	17 May 2016
BioShock Infinite	Arguable: a flying city that seceded from the United States, set in 1912; Wikipedia does not call it alternate history	Single player first person shooter with a computer controlled companion	No	$29.99	25 March 2013

The games

One by one, who each is for.

Each entry says who the game is for, how it changes history and how it differs from Iron Curtain Call. The facts under each come from its Steam page on 6 November 2026; where the story changes history comes from its Steam page or its Wikipedia article, and the entry says which.

Iron Curtain Call

Our game

Play it if you want an alternate history that is a comedy, drawn like a 1930s cartoon, and you want to try it for free first.

It is 1965, year three of World War III. Humanity ran out of soldiers, so the war is fought by wind up tin robots run by the Supreme Chancellor, a customer service machine that was handed a country. You are Corporal Punishment, a silent soldier delivered to the front like cargo, and Colonel Panic is on the radio: “I’d send backup, but you are the backup.”

The look is a 1930s rubber hose cartoon with ink lines, in full color, with white cartoon gloves in front of the camera and comic words on every hit. The fighting is close: a Knuckle Sandwich punch gives you health, the Can Opener cracks a robot open for ammo and the Hot Take shoulder flamethrower feeds your armor. In the full game pink attacks can be parried. Robots burst into bolts, springs and scrap; there is no blood.

The free demo is Mission 1, Welcome to Rubbleton: about 15 to 20 minutes, ending with the first boss, Major Disaster. It has no parry; that comes with the full game.

Developer and publisher: Whale Development Studios
Out: 11 March 2027
Free demo out: 28 October 2026
On Steam: Windows and macOS (demo on Windows, macOS and Linux)
US list price: Not priced yet
Demo: Yes, free

Play the free demo Play 60 seconds in your browser, no download

Iron Curtain Call in first person: a white cartoon glove holds a typewriter submachine gun as a grinning steam train marked 6:15 bursts out of a brick tunnel — Chapter 1, Rubbleton: the 6:15 express, in the free demo. A real gameplay frame.

Iron Storm

Play it if you want the oldest and strangest changed history here, a world war that never ended, and can forgive an old game’s rough edges.

Iron Storm is set in a world where World War I never ended. Wikipedia says the game takes place in 1964, the 50th year of the war, and sends an Allied soldier to stop an enemy empire from developing nuclear weapons. Steam puts it in Western Germany in March 1964, on a front line that runs through the heart of the country, and asks what the 1960s would have been like had World War I never ended. It first came out for Windows in 2002, and Steam has sold it since 8 May 2014.

Wikipedia says it mixes World War I trench warfare and mustard gas with World War II weapons and more modern technology. Steam adds puzzles, stealth and a stock market that directly impacts the fight, in six non linear levels. Wikipedia also notes glitches and vague mission objectives.

It is the other 1960s war on this page: a bleak front line where ours is a satire. It had no demo on Steam on 6 November 2026, and costs $2.99.

Developer and publisher: Microids
Released: 8 May 2014
On Steam: Windows
US list price: $2.99
Demo: None on Steam

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Play it if you want the best known changed history, a Nazi victory, told as a single player story.

MachineGames’ Wolfenstein: The New Order is set in a world where the Nazis won the Second World War. Wikipedia calls it an alternate history 1960s Europe, and Steam promises an alternate 1960s ruled by a familiar enemy that has changed and twisted history. You are war veteran B.J. Blazkowicz, and with a small group of resistance fighters you infiltrate heavily guarded Nazi facilities.

Steam lists single player and describes first person combat, with set pieces from a beachfront fortress on the Baltic coast to underwater exploration and player controlled Nazi war machines. Wikipedia adds that a choice in the prologue splits the story into two timelines.

It changes history at the end of the Second World War; Iron Curtain Call changes it in 1965, with a third world war. It had no demo on Steam on 6 November 2026, and costs $19.99.

Developer: MachineGames
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Released: 19 May 2014
On Steam: Windows
US list price: $19.99
Demo: None on Steam

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Play it if you want the same changed history seen from Nazi controlled America, with a free demo to try first.

The sequel starts in America, 1961, in Steam’s words: your assassination of the Nazi General Deathshead was a short lived victory, and the Nazis keep their stranglehold on the world. Wikipedia calls it an alternate history that follows the Nazi victory in the Second World War, and says the team chose America because it was Blazkowicz’s homeland.

Steam sends you to Nazi controlled America to recruit resistance leaders and spark a second American Revolution. Wikipedia says players can dual wield any combination of weapons, and that a choice in the prologue again changes the whole story.

A free demo of it was on Steam on 6 November 2026, for Windows. The game costs $39.99.

Developer: MachineGames
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Released: 26 October 2017
On Steam: Windows (demo on Windows)
US list price: $39.99
Demo: Yes, free

Atomic Heart

Play it if you want a Soviet utopia that goes wrong, with robots, and a free demo to try first.

Mundfish’s Atomic Heart is set, says Wikipedia, in an alternate history version of the Soviet Union in the 1950s, first a retrofuturistic utopia and then a collapse after a robot uprising. Steam describes a utopian world where humans live in harmony with loyal robots, until a tragic accident or a global conspiracy disrupts it.

You fight machines and mutants with an experimental power glove, an arsenal of blades and advanced weapons. Steam lists single player and a free demo.

The nearest in premise to Iron Curtain Call, a robot war in a world that went another way, and far from it in tone: its Steam text says you will “pay in blood”, and our robots burst into bolts and springs. It costs $59.99.

Developer: Mundfish
Publisher: Focus Entertainment, 4Divinity and Mundfish
Released: 20 February 2023
On Steam: Windows (demo on Windows)
US list price: $59.99
Demo: Yes, free

Prey

Play it if you want an alternate history in space, played as an immersive sim, with a free demo to try first.

Arkane’s Prey is the 2017 game, not the 2006 one: Wikipedia says it is largely unrelated to the older game. It occurs in an alternate timeline with an accelerated Space Race. Wikipedia’s plot has the Soviet Union meet a species of aliens, the Typhon, aboard a satellite in 1958, and a failed assassination attempt on President Kennedy; the designers say they asked how the future would have differed if he had survived.

On Steam you awaken aboard Talos I, a space station orbiting the Moon, as the key subject of an experiment, and the station has been overrun by hostile aliens. Steam says it was designed to reflect the corporate luxury of the 1960s. Wikipedia calls the game a first person shooter immersive sim.

A slower, more exploring game than Iron Curtain Call, with its changed history built into a station rather than a war. A free demo was on Steam on 6 November 2026, and the game costs $29.99.

Developer: Arkane Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Released: 4 May 2017
On Steam: Windows (demo on Windows)
US list price: $29.99
Demo: Yes, free

Homefront: The Revolution

Play it if you want an alternate history of occupation, fought as a guerrilla in an open world.

Dambuster Studios’ Homefront: The Revolution takes place, says Wikipedia, in an alternate timeline in which the digital revolution of the 1970s happened in North Korea instead of California, and the story follows a resistance against a North Korean occupation of Philadelphia. Steam opens four years into the occupation, with surveillance drones and armored patrols keeping the city in line.

Steam calls it an open world first person shooter where you lead a resistance in guerrilla warfare: ambush, sabotage, infiltration. It lists single player, multiplayer and co op. Wikipedia reports mixed reviews at release, with praise for the open world and the weapon customization.

Its history changes through business, not through a lost war. It had no demo on Steam on 6 November 2026, and costs $19.99.

Developer: Dambuster Studios
Publisher: Deep Silver
Released: 17 May 2016
On Steam: Windows
US list price: $19.99
Demo: None on Steam

BioShock Infinite

Play it if you want a floating city and a story of parallel worlds, and you do not need the past to be strictly altered.

Irrational Games’ BioShock Infinite is the arguable entry, and it is here because players ask for it. Steam sets it in 1912, in Columbia, a flying city. Wikipedia adds that Columbia was funded by the United States government as a floating world’s fair, took part in the Boxer Rebellion, and then seceded from the United States and disappeared into the clouds.

That is an invented piece of history, but Wikipedia does not call the game an alternate history, and the alternate universes in its story are Tears in space time, not a changed past. So treat it as the edge of this list. It is a single player first person shooter with a computer controlled companion, Elizabeth.

The one of the eight we are least sure belongs. It had no demo on Steam on 6 November 2026; it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and costs $29.99.

Developers: Irrational Games and Virtual Programming (Linux)
Publisher: 2K
Released: 25 March 2013
On Steam: Windows, macOS and Linux
US list price: $29.99
Demo: None on Steam

The definition

What makes a shooter alternate history?

Wikipedia says alternate history stories explore “what if?” scenarios and usually have a point of divergence, a change in recorded history that alters everything after it. In a shooter that point is easy to find, because the genre loves wars. Sometimes the war ends differently: the Nazis win the Second World War in the two Wolfenstein games. Sometimes it never ends: Iron Storm keeps World War I going into the 1960s. And sometimes the change is a race or a revolution, as in Prey, Atomic Heart and Homefront: The Revolution.

We counted a game only if Steam or Wikipedia says its history is changed. That is why one famous name is marked arguable, and why two others are left out below. A game that only borrows a period’s look, or a real event as a backdrop, is a historical shooter, not an alternate history one.

Games like Wolfenstein

If you came for games like Wolfenstein

It depends on what you liked. If it was a world that went the wrong way, the closest here are the other changed wars: Iron Storm, where the first world war never ended, and Homefront: The Revolution, where a resistance fights an occupation of the United States. If it was the resistance and the fighting, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is the sequel, in Nazi controlled America. If it was a retro future with machines, Atomic Heart and Iron Curtain Call are the two with robots.

On this list only the two Wolfenstein games are Nazi victory stories. If that is the one thing you need, nothing else here replaces them. For a faster, funnier shooter in another changed history, play 60 seconds of Iron Curtain Call in your browser, no download, or see our cartoon FPS guide.

Left out on purpose

Two names that turn up on these lists

The Stalin Subway is on Steam, and Steam calls it a First Person Shooter style game, but its description is of Moscow in the 1950s, a plot against Stalin and authentic weapons. It states no changed history, so it is not here. The Resistance series does change history, in Wikipedia’s words an alternate history 1950s in which an alien civilization, the Chimera, conquers Earth, but Wikipedia lists it for PlayStation consoles only, so it has no Steam page and no row.

Questions

Questions players ask

What are the best alternate history FPS games?

This guide does not rank them, it groups them by how clearly each story changes history: the two Wolfenstein games (the Nazis won the Second World War), Iron Storm (World War I never ended), Atomic Heart (an alternate Soviet Union in the 1950s), Prey (an accelerated Space Race) and Homefront: The Revolution (a North Korean occupation of the United States). Iron Curtain Call, our own, sets World War III in an alternate 1965. BioShock Infinite is the arguable eighth.

What is an alternate history shooter?

A first person shooter whose story starts from a changed past. Wikipedia describes alternate history as a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events happen differently than they did in reality, usually from a point of divergence. In these games that point is the end of a world war, a race into space or a revolution.

What are some games like Wolfenstein?

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is the sequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order, and they are the two Nazi victory stories here. For other changed wars, Iron Storm (World War I never ended) and Homefront: The Revolution (a resistance against an occupation). For robots in a world that went another way, Atomic Heart and Iron Curtain Call.

Is there an alternate history FPS with a free demo?

Yes. On 6 November 2026 Iron Curtain Call, Wolfenstein II, Prey and Atomic Heart each had a free demo on Steam. The Iron Curtain Call demo is free on Steam: Mission 1, Welcome to Rubbleton, about 15 to 20 minutes, ending with the first boss, Major Disaster, with no parry (that comes with the full game). You can also play 60 seconds in your browser.

Is BioShock Infinite an alternate history game?

It is arguable. Steam sets it in 1912 in the flying city of Columbia, and Wikipedia says Columbia seceded from the United States. But Wikipedia does not call the game an alternate history, and the alternate universes in its story come from Tears in space time. We list it as the edge case.

Is the Resistance series on PC?

No. Wikipedia lists the Resistance series, set in an alternate history 1950s where the Chimera conquer Earth, for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita. It has no Steam page, so it gets no row in the table.

Which alternate history shooters are set in the 1960s?

Iron Storm is set in 1964, Wolfenstein: The New Order in an alternate 1960s Europe, and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus in 1961. Iron Curtain Call is set in an alternate 1965.

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from these pages, read on 6 November 2026. Prices and dates change; the store page always has the final word.

Iron Curtain Call, Steam store page
Iron Storm, Steam store page
Wolfenstein: The New Order, Steam store page
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Steam store page
Atomic Heart, Steam store page
Prey, Steam store page
Homefront: The Revolution, Steam store page
BioShock Infinite, Steam store page
Alternate history, Wikipedia
Iron Storm (2002 video game), Wikipedia
Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wikipedia
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Wikipedia
Atomic Heart, Wikipedia
Prey (2017 video game), Wikipedia
Homefront: The Revolution, Wikipedia
BioShock Infinite, Wikipedia
Resistance (video game series), Wikipedia

World War III now has a free trial.

Mission 1 of Iron Curtain Call is free on Steam. Play it, and if the war wins you over, wishlist the full war: it arrives on 11 March 2027.

Play the free demo Wishlist on Steam Play 60 seconds in your browser, no download