Terminator Meets The Backrooms In New Sci-Fi Horror Game

Published Aug 23, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

Known as 'Cyberpunk 2077's' biggest fan, Angharad is a Welsh games writer who thrives in anything related to digital storytelling. If a video game explores the intricacies and horrors of womanhood, she is there.

Thanks to previous work at GAMINGbible, GameByte, The Loadout, Game Luster, Angharad has built a strong understanding of both the digital world and what fans want from it and is eager to share her thoughts and expertise with readers.

In an era where artificial intelligence is becoming a part of day-to-day life, the idea that the robots humans have created could become sentient is a theory that many horror and sci-fi projects have explored in record numbers over recent years. However, this concept has always been a part of society, such as in the hit 1984 movie, The Terminator.

Now, this upcoming psychological horror title combines The Terminator with the more recent Backrooms franchise to bring us an experience we are unlikely to forget.

Set to launch this October, Ironwake is a "single-session psychological horror" which sees us take on the role of an old Soviet robot locked away in a bunker who is soon reactivated after our mind is uploaded into their shell. Now alone and in the dark, we must solve puzzles in dying machines and listen to the one voice that is slowly guiding us along the way. How the story ends, however, is entirely up to us.

Developed by Enunion Team, Ironwake takes place in the year 2050 following the outbreak of a nuclear war. Now, with the earth a radioactive graveyard, the only thing worth anything is buried deep amongst the earth in the ruins of Kazakhstan, Sector V-4. However, with no living body able to reach it, they must send a mind instead.

Yours. Uploaded down a neural link into UNIT MARK-1, an industrial robot that has been asleep behind the airlocks for decades. You wake up as a ton of cold iron, alone in the dark, with one voice on the radio for company and a job you were told to finish at any cost.

Something else in the bunker is awake. You cannot fight it. You can only listen for it, kill your lights, hold still, and hope it passes.

With just an operator as company, you will have to hunt and be hunted as you follow their instructions. However, with something else in the bunker with us who hunt by light and sound, darkness and silence are your friends. Cutting the power may stop their hunt, but it will also leave you blind and helpless.

In Ironwake, you will have to descend further into the bunker, reactivating dying machines as you go, but with clues scattered throughout its iron halls, you may just be able to piece together a way to make the story end on your own terms.

People up top are dying without what's buried in this bunker. You were told to bring it back at any cost.

Nobody told you what that cost was.

Ironwake is set to launch on 28 October 2026, so if you are looking for a short, yet impactful, psychological horror experience, look no further than this puzzle-filled, first-person experience.

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  Terminator

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  Michael Biehn

  Kyle Reese