Demo 1.5.3 is out: what is new in the free Iron Curtain Call demo
I am Ekin, a solo developer in Istanbul, and Demo 1.5.3 of Iron Curtain Call is on Steam now. It is free, it is Mission 1, and it carries everything built since the last public demo, version 1.4.
That is a lot at once. Versions 1.5, 1.5.1 and 1.5.2 were built but never uploaded, so players get all of them together in this one.
The film for the game premiered the same night.Your War Is Important To Us, 2:12. Watch it here.
A gun in your hand within ten seconds
The first minutes were rebuilt. You get a gun within ten seconds of taking control, and the first fight starts at once.
During that first fight a second crate comes down under a pink parachute, with FREE SAMPLE stencilled on its side. Take it and the Pink Slip is in your hand on key 7: throw it, it cuts through shields and every robot in its path, and it comes back. It is a weapon from Chapter 7 of the full game, here as a free sample.
The crash site now ends in a robot checkpoint across the street, under a sign that says YOU ARE NOT LEAVING THE CRASH SITE. The Pink Slip is how you leave.
More than twice the robots
Chapter 1 has more than twice as many robots on every difficulty. The automated test that plays the whole chapter counted 184, 205 and 279 robots on Easy, Normal and Hard before, and 417, 475 and 618 now.
Ammunition now comes only for guns you actually carry.
AIR MAIL: supply crates by parachute in the boss fight
Running out of ammunition in the Major Disaster fight was the most common complaint, so supplies now drop in by parachute. The first crate lands 16 seconds in, then one comes every 22, 26 or 30 seconds on Easy, Normal or Hard, and if your guns run dry the next one is at most 6 seconds away. A gold ring on the floor shows where it will land.
About one drop in three is not ammunition. HQ sends an empty crate, a single round on a cushion, a birthday cake, a rubber duck the size of a sofa, or a grand piano steered at the Major. The piano takes 4.5 percent of his health and leaves him dazed. The real crate follows a few seconds after each joke.
The hotel, the ground and 26 jokes
The Concierge now makes his entrance as the hotel lobby fight's last act, with the house lights going out and a spotlight coming on.
Chapter 1's streets have natural ground: paving breaking into earth, puddles, mud and weeds, with kerbs, gutters and manholes. Along the way are 26 small jokes and easter eggs, seven of them staged and four hidden. None of them uses a real politician, a flag or a human figure.
The guns are real recordings
The sound was remade. The four guns come from real gun recordings (the Sonniss GameAudioGDC bundles), each with a tail for each of five spaces, and many effects are made with ElevenLabs. A new mix no longer flattens every shot.
Also new since version 1.4
- Unlicensed Mode: a box in the settings for people who are playing a free demo illegally. The Supreme Chancellor is not amused.
- Twitch Mode: type your channel name and viewers can send robots with their own names over their heads.
- The Evidence Camera: press H (or F8) and the last 8 seconds are saved as a short MP4, framed as a 1965 security tape, ready for Discord or X.
- The Global War Effort: a live countries board of scrapped robots, on the main menu and on the site.
- Full controller support.
Two new squares and a sewer
Tanners' Court and Unity Plaza now rise four and five storeys, with galleries at three floors, and a sewer in three levels runs under the plaza. A new robot, the Plumber, comes up out of manholes, grates and hatches.
Written on 7 November 2026 from the release notes of build 1.5.3. AI disclosure: the game uses AI tools for its voices, some art and some music.