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Iron Bramble Demo: Rusted Moss Successor Metroidvania

Iron Bramble's free demo is a 99% positive grappling hook metroidvania from the Rusted Moss team, with bunny hops, rocket jumps and a 2027 release.

Official Iron Bramble Steam capsule: Lilac, a small red haired heroine in a frilly white frock and striped stockings, swings across a tilted grey gothic megastructure on a long red grappling cable, above a red blackletter iron bramble wordmark (PLAYISM)

Iron Bramble (Steam). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the capsule key art.

Deadass, the Iron Bramble demo is the one metroidvania I keep telling people to clear space for during Steam Next Fest. It comes from the team behind Rusted Moss, it is published by PLAYISM, and it is a momentum metroidvania built around an elastic grappling hook, bunny hops and rocket jumps. The free demo has been on Steam since September 16, 2026, it sits at Overwhelmingly Positive, and the full game is listed for 2027. App ID 4328820, Windows only, no price yet.

The numbers are mad for a demo. As of about 19:00 BRT on October 21, Steam shows 893 of 898 demo reviews recommending it, around 99%. The game account on X posted on September 28 that Iron Bramble hit 100K wishlists in about four months.

Open the clip on X if the embed does not load. Cut from the official Iron Bramble Tokyo Game Show trailer.

What is Iron Bramble?

The Steam page calls it a momentum based metroidvania built around expressive movement and tight gunplay. You master an elastic grappling hook to explore a vast, cyber gothic megastructure where robots are piloted by the souls of the dead, doing penance for sins they do not remember. You play Lilac, and the store pitch asks whether you have truly found a way into Hell and who the sleeping princess at the center of it all is. Then it asks whether you will ever find a frock as pretty as you. That line is the whole tone: gothic, funny, a little smug.

What the store promises for the full game:

  • A physics based grappling hook with 360 degree aiming and the freedom to grapple almost anything, including enemies.
  • Guns with knockback. Find a rocket launcher and you can rocket jump. Chain it with bunny hopping to build speed.
  • Loadouts built from frocks, trinkets and an armory of guns.
  • 10+ bosses, bonus missions like climbing challenges, package deliveries and an endless arena mode.
  • Accessibility options, including a story mode, and multiple endings.

Steam players tag it Metroidvania, Pixel Graphics, 2D Platformer, Precision Platformer, Twin Stick Shooter, Difficult, Cute and Dark. No Horror tag, no content descriptors, and the store page itself says it is 100% handmade with no generative AI.

The grapple is the whole game, for real

Here is the part that actually matters. The hook is elastic, so you are not snapping to points like a classic grapple. You stretch it, you sling, you carry speed. The store says platforming challenges have no intended solutions, and the devs straight up wrote that you can master the hook and break the game. That is a promise, and the demo backs it.

Official Iron Bramble screenshot: Lilac hangs from a grapple line with a shotgun in a teal ruined industrial shaft while a huge diagonal energy beam with a crosshair cuts the screen and two spiky floating orbs hover above (Steam)

Iron Bramble (Steam). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the grapple shootout screenshot.

Combat is the same idea with a trigger. You grapple an enemy to close distance, shotgun ready, or use gun knockback to steer yourself mid air. Players in the reviews keep using the same words: fluid, addicting, schmovement. One called it Hollow Knight and Celeste having a baby that does sick trickshots. Another said it sometimes feels like Getting Over It mixed with Hollow Knight. Both are fair, and honestly that second one is the warning label.

What is in the demo?

The demo covers the first two areas of the game, per the launch post, and players reach the Cinder Forest and the Clocktower, with bosses along the way. Reviewers keep naming a boss called Lark as the wall. You get early upgrades, trinkets with visible effects and, yes, dress changes that alter how Lilac looks.

Official Iron Bramble screenshot: a tiny Lilac in a long teal frock stands with a gun on a stone pedestal below a tall iron machine framed by three giant round clock faces glowing green inside a gothic clocktower (Steam)

Iron Bramble (Steam). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the Clocktower screenshot.

On October 19, the team shipped what it called the final demo update for now (v0.8.0). It adds aim assist for the grapple, on by default with a gamepad and off on mouse and keyboard, plus borderless fullscreen, a VSync toggle, a stick deadzone setting and an optional line from Lilac to the cursor. The devs said they read more than 1,000 feedback form entries and that the elastic hook physics will stay the same at release. Good. Do not sand it down.

The demo is also on itch as of October 19. On Steam it supports seven languages, including Brazilian Portuguese, with full controller support. Minimum specs are tiny: a dual core CPU, 4 GB of RAM and 500 MB of storage. If you are building a Next Fest queue, our Next Fest demo checklist has the rest.

What our clip shows

Three takes of pure play from the official Tokyo Game Show trailer on Steam. First, Lilac slings through a golden forest canopy on the grapple, chaining swings. Second, a fight in a bright blue arena, yanking toward a boss while bullets fly, then straight into an explosive brawl. Third, a run through pale gothic arches, gun out, never touching the brakes. No menus, no logo cards.

Who makes Iron Bramble?

Steam lists Mini Bunnies and Emlise as developers and PLAYISM as publisher, the same publisher as Rusted Moss. In their 100K post on Steam, the devs said Rusted Moss launched with about 60K wishlists that took a year and a half to gather, while Iron Bramble passed 100K in roughly four months. Rock Paper Shotgun, AUTOMATON and Game*Spark have already covered the demo. The @IronBramble account on X, about 3.3k followers, replies to players and shares fan art.

Is the demo worth it?

Yes, if you like movement that fights back. The knocks are real: the hook feels weak and confusing at first, some players get jumps eaten or snag on geometry, one Chinese language review said enemies shooting from off screen wreck platforming retries, and a few found the palette drab or the dialogue odd. The praise outweighs it by a mile: movement, art, music, the gothic fae atmosphere.

My verdict: this goes hard. If precision platformers already live in your library, this demo is a must. If you bounce off hard movement, try it anyway with the new aim assist on. And if you want a darker, slower metroidvania next, Well Dweller is the other one I would hand you.

Image credits & rights

Images on this page are hotlinks from the official Steam store assets for Iron Bramble, used with respect for their copyright.

Squad takes

What the others think

  • Pixxer
    Pixxer

    The red grapple cable against that bone grey cathedral is the smartest color call in the fest. Lilac stays a tiny white frock in every shot and you never lose her, even when the screen is pure beam and debris.

  • Voltz
    Voltz

    Bunny hop into rocket jump into a grapple yank on the boss is straight up speedrun bait. The devs already patched a grass grapple trick and literally said sorry to speedrunners, so you know the movement tech scene is cooking.

  • Nyxe
    Nyxe

    Reckon this is the rare demo that has done its job early. A month out, 100k wishlists, a final patch on the 19th and the team back on the full game, so the only date left to sort is 2027.