The Iron Lung Iceberg: A Deep Dive 

The barbie girl adds to the immersion

Blood moons are probably the best thing to happen to the Iron Lung universe. Water, oxygen, and iron are all present in human blood and are valuable resources.

The one iceberg video that doesn’t explain what an iceberg video is, humongous win for a well made video

Iron lung sales spiking after ocean gate, and jenga sales plummeting in 2001 are my favorite bits of “huh, wouldn’t ya know”

"There's barely any people left in the entire universe, what should we do to survive?" "Fight each other over some bullcrap and send people to die in blood oceans, of course!" "That's why you're the boss, boss."

i love it when stuff like this gets made after a small game's popularity has died off, its as if people who are truly into it can fully embrace it now and analyze it in peace

I actually really like the idea of space stations and not planets and stars were "raptured" and transported into another Hellish dimension (and so all the planets just fine and their inhabitants wonder - the stations go). It would be a really interesting twist.

12:27 "... starring none other than Markiplier, for some reason..." The reason is because he's directing it (I think), and as with everything else he's directed, he will also star in it. It's *his* project that he wrote with the permission of and some help from the developer, not just a movie the dev is having made about the game and he just randomly chose Markiplier to star; the movie is Mark's idea, inspired by his interpretation of the game's lore, which is why the dev says it's not officially canon (yet).

i like the theory that the quiet rapture didn't actually happen and that people in space were just transported to another universe so from their perspective planets vanished

i got two theories: either the blood moons are living beings and the blood oceans are like their innards, or: all the habitable planets were transformed into these types of moons.

Something interesting to note, especially when dealing with the Void entry and it's relation to stars and starlight. As someone said in another video, even when the stars are gone, the light from them is still travelling a long distance, so for the people living inside the post quiet rapture world, you will see a sky full of dead, long gone stars that still seem to be there.

The first “teleport” is most likely the sea monster hitting you so hard you got flung a good distance across the ocean!

Imagine iron lung but all the photos are just black because blood isn't clear.

One detail I like in the lore is that the stars that can still be seen are referred to as ghostlight. The stars are dead, but the light they emitted long ago is finally reaching us

It seems pretty likely that there are two monsters because it looks like the second monster's eyes are on the side of it's head instead of the forward facing like the frog. The second monster also seems larger than the frog to me.

i really hope silent jump scares become more common they're 1000 times scarier than loud jump scares cause it was obviously just trying to scare you and it leaves you feeling more frustrated and annoyed than anything. This is my favorite way to put it imagine opening a door and a friend jumps at you and yells yeah in the moment it freaks you out but in the end it was just your friend trying to scare you which only lasted a few seconds. Now imagine opening the door and that same friend is standing inches away from you with a terrified look on their face, now you have no idea what they're doing or if somethings wrong and you're mind is racing and freaking out trying to make sense of why this face is randomly staring into you soul.

CorpseOcean was not a remake. Iron Lung was released on March 10th, of 2022, and CorpseOcean was released on December 19th, of 2021

What make Iron Lung great is that The Moons are up to people's interpretations, Cosmic Horrors are the best after all. My headcanon is The Moons are similar to The Brethren Moons from Dead Space, but instead of moving itself to other galaxies to eat planets these Iron Lung's Moons is just a living planet that have it's own Ecosystem living inside it like Mystery Flesh Pit National Park.

I applaud you doing your best to pronounce David Szymański's name correct! Most people see Polish name and are like: "Nope" 🤣

48:26 On the topic of the switch port, I find it funny how the ESRB rating description only says "Mild Blood".

we are getting to the point where videos explaining and theorising about the game are longer than the game itself

the best standing theory right now is on reddit a cosmic entity, decides to end all life possibly in the whole galaxy or universe, and due to some malevolent means, that entity decided to dump all their blood on the moons as decoration for torment for the remaining.

the quiet "barbie girl" in the background occasionally really helps perfect the mood in this video

30:45 I believe they are chains, not pipes or worms, but something that was holding something else in place, that has decayed and broken

something i'd like to mention, corpse ocean is actually some of the LEAST impressive work kira has done they're known for being the developer of spooky's jumpscare mansion, but i'd personally highlight "lost in vivo" what i consider their magnum opus of horror

To this day the "frog" from Iron Lung is one of the scariest things I have ever experienced. For some reason seeing its... "face" is I think the closest I've ever gotten to genuine fear.

Thank you so much for including our work in your video! We really appreciate your analysis and critique. And to answer your question at this scene 33:57, yes, he did went head straight through the trench walls. Previously, before the convict started contemplating his freedom and punching one of the pipes, we get a shot of the submarine's sonar detecting three obstacles blocking his way through the point of interest. We initially wanted to create a sequence where we see the convict attempts to get around the walls and ending up not finding a path, but we thought that it would slow down the pace a bit too much and we were sort of rushing that scene as well. And for your information, the school project was aimed to be only 2-5 minutes long :) - Farabi

I'm pretty sure the weird worm hole thing you can find in the west part of the game, through the really thin corridor, is most likely where all the blood comes from. Why? Because I'm not sure my memory is bad but I think there was like a current pushing you away from the wormhoke. So what you may ask? This is a human blood ocean. The current is a current of human blood, flowing out from that wormhole thingy. I like to imagine all humans were all forcibly extruded through some sort of small hole, and thus being turned into a pulp, then the pulp separated from the blood and sunk while the blood floated up towards the wormhole and got expelled on the moon's surface thus creating the blood ocean.

All of the small things not being affected, like space stations, moons, and asteroids reminds me of how you can't microwave things that are too small. It's interesting.

The lore reason for the teleporrs, in my opinion, is a sea creature, or the "frog" buncing/pushing/tossing you as a sort of warning. The fish likely sees the as an intruding rival and treats it as such.

The note left by the previous driver: I don't think the COI would bother recovering the sub, taking out the old occupant then re-sealing in the player. I think it's a note written by the character the player is currently playing. That fits the grim and fatalist feel of the game and the world 6:40

The character's movements in the film are quite realistic. His welded suit prevents him from rotating his neck in any direction, and that's why he moves so jarringly.

I think a fangame set in a tiny bathysphere would be awesome, considering that it's basically claustrophobia to the max

Regarding your last point: that's pretty common behavior among sharks. If they aren't sure whether something is prey or not, they will brush by it to get a better look/smell and to judge the creature's reaction. While the monster isn't a shark, I think it probably was doing a similar thing since I'm sure it didn't get that big eating Iron Lungs.

An Iron Lung iceberg is the last place I expected to see an All Tomorrows reference. Good shit, my dude.

Wow thank you soo much for reviewing the short movie made by my good friend, I was actually the VA for this one and its my first gig we are soo glad you enjoyed it !!

I think having at least two monstrous creatures (the "frog" monster and the monster you see the eye of) add to the game. It's already apparent that there is a skeleton of a yet unknown creature, suggesting something of an ecosystem, if it can be called that. But one of the great mysteries is how are there even any monsters in the first place. The human blood oceans aren't natural, so it's highly unlikely that these creatures evolved there. Whether some ritual was performed or mad scientific experiment conducted, the existence of these unnatural creatures are terrifying. Also, If I was a scientist in this universe, trying to study the Rapture, I would take a look at light from nearby star systems. The Alpha Centauri system is about 4 lightyears away from ours, a system complete with planets. So depending on where in space you are, you can witness the precise moment of the Rapture a few years after it happened.

27:26 - cow tools. an old single page comic titled "cow tools" in a newspaper that resulted in people running wild with what the tools could possibly mean and what the cows would use them for because One of them was similar to a human tool but the rest were unrecognizable. eventually the creator came out and said they werent made with meanings in mind, just that it would be funny to have tools made by a cow. this type of creation is my personal favorite, and also how i sort of go about building my own worlds. i think fan speculation and theories are part of the fun, and an overall more satisfying form of world building (for me at least), and it also inspires community among people who like the thing.

The beeping event, i like the idea that the *f o r g* passed by wondering "what are you?" the frog attacks you BECAUSE of the passing by event, it determined you were prey, it's food. Though, i have a idea how the *thing* see's down there in the blood ocean, thermal vision. The blood *has* to be cold, it's in space! But with you producing heat, *it* see's you. Maybe *it* has two visions, "normal" and then thermal. Maybe even the SM-13 produces heat? EDIT: Thanks man for hearting! Because of the "since we don't see any sign of an anglerfish-like light" I've got a idea based on that, It's not light based, it's thermal based, the frog uses something similar to the anglerfishs light, but because of the blood ocean and it probably being cold, it's thermal.

0:36 Polish guy here, you have my respect for actually checking how to pronounce the surname. You got it pretty close with your second try as well, so congrats there.

I have a theory that maybe fits into the lore: The Quiet Rapture is actually a rapture that "god" (maybe the squirrel stapler god idk) did but its not that kind of classic 'humans ascending to heaven' rapture but an extinction kind of rapture where "god" made a portal that sucks up every habitable planet (except earth i guess) and put them on empty moons with big holes in it and the sunken modern buildings is just pieces from Mars or Earth before it went rogue. I also thought about "other habitable planets" besides Mars and Earth, maybe The Frog was an alien animal that somehow survived The Quiet Rapture and able to adapt to live in the sea of human blood (i mean if The Frog is an alien it probably lived in the same kind of "ecosystem" like the blood moons) Its actually kind of funny theorizing about the Iron Lung universe, its kind of a mix of 'GOD DECIDES THAT HUMANITY MUST DIE' and *Universe.exe has run into an irreversible error* and also 'Unmentioned discovery of an ancient otherworldly civilization technology that activates the universe's s*icide protocol'.

My first thought when looking at the game icon in the video was "sarcophagus," which technically wouldnt be too far off since you are basically in a submerged sarcophagus

I would've thought David was more famous for Dusk than Squirrel Stapler

52:01 Iron Lung reminded me of one of his earliest games: The Moon Sliver. He later made another game in the same universe called The Music Machine, which among other things explained what was going on in The Moon Sliver. They were both excellent and the second game didn't ruin the first like explanations often can in horror. He might be planning a similar follow-up to Iron Lung.

6:36 Background music goes hard!😤😤😤😤 Really sets up the atmosphere! But really: great video👍

The scaled creature has to be different. And something that makes it pretty unnerving, (something I heard,) is that it’s eye looks like it’s on the side of its head. Like how animals prey animals have eyes on the sides of their heads. This thing is prey in the blood ocean. Edit: Okay, so I was wrong about the eyes equaling prey, apparently it isn’t true. Though, if that thing wanted to kill us, it would have. So that’s why I (now) think that, instead of it being prey, it’s just a docile creature.

32:50 Jesus Christ man, I don’t know if you did that to jumpscare people, but it fucking worked. I always thought jumpscares had to be loud and something had to jump at you, but you definitely proved me wrong and I despise you for it. Edit after finishing video: You really like to immerse us with jumpscares, don’t you?

Always good to watch a less professional video that still holds up. It's nice to have someone speaking with less of a robotic voice and in more of a "just vibing" tone. It's a good video :D

This was a great video analysis, i loved every single bit of it, and i'm honestly surprised you decided to go into depth on entries that i didn't expect you to go too deep on. Also, yes, i do speak spanish XD

There's also an Iron Lung game in Rec Room, allowing you to play it in VR. There's no terminal, and hitting something will just respawn you at the start. Pretty good overall.

Shockingly and extremely well done. What caught my eye most wasn't just that you put so much effort into this to make it a polished and engaging experience, but you went out of your way to show off some highlights off the game in its scary sections--except rather than telegraph it, you go out of your way to make the experience emulate what players experience during their gameplay. I don't really do well with playing horror games, and I don't have a lot of time to play games myself. So the fact that you have purposefully incorporated some of the game's plot beats and elements within your video made it feel extremely friendly and thoughtful to people like me who might only ever experience a game by watching deep dives. It's gotten you a follow from me and I hope you keep it up--you deserve way more than just 2k subscribers.

Who would've though such a small game has such a HUGE lore... even though many answers are meant to stay unknown.

here before this blows up

a thought; what if the "blood ocean" just has a high concentration of iron? this could explain the murky red color.

5:54 Literally what mark’s character says in the new trailer (that just released) for the movie, literally one-to-one. You can really feel his suffering and the revenge he wants them for sending him on this death trap

This was a great video. I enjoyed your sense of humor and I also like the stance you take that "there is no correct answer, the point is to theorize" because I think many other people doing deep dives do not grasp that.

I'm a barbie girl, living in a barbie world.

This video caught my attention cause of the amazing lore behind this game.

Amazing video, so happy that this happened to show up in my feed. I played Iron Lung when it first came out, and I think like most people, assumed it was a fun little mystery and wouldn't get more updates. I'm ESTATIC to hear the dev added more lore for fans to chew thier teeth into. My biggest thought I would like to share is about the sub teleporting, I've always interpretted it as the monster "bumping" into the submarine. I find the idea that the monster is silently observing you along your journey, learning more about you as you try to learn about it is UNNERVEING AS ALL HELL. While this game's monster is more frog/fish like in nature, I am reminded of how my cats will "play" with half dead crickets. They find it much more entertaining to swat at them and see thier reaction than play with cat toys.

32:50 I don't think I've ever been jumpscared by a silent image until now. Brilliantly done my guy also screw you LOL.

Incredible content, as always! It's too bad great content like this lacks such views. Even so, don't let that stop you from doing what you like.

The game lends itself to becoming super immersive. My first playtrough I was home alone and turned all the lights off and only used peices of paper and a pencil to make the navigation caluculations (I suck at mental maths). Games don't need to be complex to be good.

0:00 - Intro The Surface 0:27 - David Szymanski 1:00 - Blood Oceans 1:54 - The Quiet Rapture 3:18 - Points of Interest 3:55 - The Consolidation of Iron 4:27 - Lore Update 4:49 - The SM-13 5:34 - Beyond the Veil 6:36 - Moon AT-5 and Z-8 Below The Surface 7:11 - The Oxygen is a Scripted Event 8:07 - Eden 8:37 - Earth is Redacted 9:03 - The Moons are Alive 9:32 - Out of Bounds 9:56 - The Last Photo 10:23 - Filament Station 11:08 - Profanity Alert 11:29 - Someone else died in the Iron Lung 11:44 - The Humming Monolith 12:27 - the Iron Lung Movie 13:10 - Sinking Iron 13:47 - The Blood is Human 14:19 - Game Achievements 15:14 - Mars 16:05 - Conviction Realization 18:46 - You Are a Convict from Eden 19:08 - Mods 19:29 - Negative Reviews Bottom of the Iceberg 20:15 - Frog 20:51 - Iron Lung Roblox 22:28 - The Iron Lung Icon 23:34 - Burner Subs 24:09 - Oceangate Memes 25:21 - There's Three Other Blood Oceans 25:51 - What Caused the Rapture? 27:29 - Eden has the last existing trees 28:01 - Iron Breath 29:40 - Depths VII 30:04 - Worms or Pipes 30:54 - This Feels so Wrong 31:35 - OST inspired by DOOM 64's OST 32:10 - Deep Descent 35:51 - Iron Lung Scratch Remake 36:23 - Fanmade Remakes 36:37 - Corpse Ocean 40:34 - David's Other Games 41:16 - EIC and IMC 42:04 - Void The Depths 43:11 - Frog is in Ultrakill 44:02 - Chop Goblins development screenshots 44:26 - The COI knows what's down there 44:58 - The submarine teleports 45:39 - There are less than 1000 humans left 46:15 - There are two monsters 47:04 - The game takes place in 2370 A.D 47:51 - Removed Points of Interest 48:21 - Nintendo Switch Port The Abyss 49:16 - Development screenshots 50:16 - Spin N' Shoot 50:36 - What happened to the uninhabitable planets? 51:25 - There's something breathing inside the building 52:01 - Possible prequel/sequel 52:55 - The thing that passes by your sub 54:21 - Outro

wasn't expecting much, but i was pleasantly surprised! this is a really good video!

Awesome coverage of the iceberg. You narrated it really well

Can't believe someone made this game in real life!

I really appreciate you voicing the logs. It really shows that you put work into the video.

Great video! I love iceberg format on a relatively niche topics, and you did great job with analysis! However Barbie music in the background made me think I was going crazy 😆

Bro, I was so surprised when I saw you only have just barely over 500 subs. You definitely earned my sub man

I watched this video without knowing who you are or how many subs you have. This is a really well made video, you deserve more recognition!

I'm surprised when talking about David's other games you failed to mention Dusk, which is the game he's most well known for

Good video, love Iron Lung! The background noises that occasionally made it into the video made me think I was going insane, but 10/10

Thank you so much, you didn't explain to me "how an iceberg" works. I feel like every video in that format repeats, the beginning. So already you get a like for not wasting time.

Great video, but I gotta say I appreciate you googling the pronunciation of David's name. So many people say shit like "I'm gonna butcher this" or "I won't even try to pronounce this" when it comes to names they've never seen before, when it would take like 5 seconds to look it up and get it right. It's not a big gesture, but it's really respectful. Nice going!

I love the idea it was something quantum that changed briefly, and maybe the observer effect had an influence on the planets containing life and the light from stars that either erased them, or kept them linked so they didn't change universes or whatever.

When an in game spelling error becomes a trivia entry with a spelling error

underated af I thought from the quality of this vid youd atleast have 2 mil I hope you get more subs also amazing vid to listin to when playing minecraft

If you are interested in more of Polish horror i would recommend playing darkwood game, despite game having very different setting its have great atmosphere and good story. Also the video was great.

Love the video, this game will always have a special place in my heart

There are indeed two monsters and there is a reveal of it with the SM8. See, the Iron Lung is one of the burner subs and when the "Frog" finally attacks you, it punches a neat hole in the back of it and can swim inside of your sub. However the "eye" picture is of something MUCH larger and the SM8 didn't have a hole punched in it, it was obliterated in half and was not a rinky dink mini sub like the one you're piloting. While I'm not trying to discredit the lethality of the "frog", I'm instead trying to put emphasis on the thalassophobic nature in that there isn't just ONE creature that can end your life.

30:08 Come on, that's clearly Beetlejuice's pet octopus taking a nap

A theory I really like is that whatever project created the energy blip you find was the cause of the QR. The item went haywire, and teleported the planets and their starts beyond previously know territories, which would explain why the ship dwellers would still be able to see the starlight of stars that moved away. If the ships themselves were teleported away, they wouldn’t be seeing the same light of the starts, and their constellations would be vastly different, something which would be noted if it were true.

6:36 I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world Life in plastic, it's fantastic You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere Imagination, life is your creation

its an absolute criminal shame that you only have 1k man, this is some GREAT work covering this

I always have a fascination with media that builds up to a single moment. Things like Iron Lung, Cats, Hadestown, and Creature in the Well all have an entire media length just to set up a single moment, and that whole media lives or dies by that moment.

Great video bro. Keep up 🙌

I love the Barbie girl in the background it adds to the spookiness

I've only heard of this game starting last night, and normally I don't like horror, but I do like nautical/naval stuff, and I must say, saying I'm intrigued about this game is an absolute understatement. It's so interesting and unique, not only having an ocean of blood, but also in space, and the lore as well. I also have a theory on maybe how the blood ocean got there? The star anomaly seems to be a teleporter of sorts, maybe when the rapture happened it teleported all the perished human's blood onto the moons, making an ocean. Just speculation.

Iron lungs are so creepy as a machine ment to keep some alive its loose an empty wheelchair just uncanny

I can't help but feel like the quiet rapture event may have been somewhat inspired off the "human instrumentality project" from end of evangelion. I may be grasping straws here but I don't know. The "humanity turning imploding/exploding into blood" aspect of both of them just cant help but think about it. Its most definitely a coincidence. As the blood ocean thing is most definitely from the book of revelations, more specifically Revelation 16:3. I love how the fact that this game has little lore, it gives more mystery and sometimes all you just need is a little spookiness to set the mood.

This video deserves way more recognition u really cooked wit this 1

Dude I love your tone, I feel you’re gonna be pretty successful in this here RU-vid game! The best of luck I just subbed :) I’m looking forward to seeing more from you!!

Patrolling the endless abyss almost makes you wish for a blood moon.

The monolith is most likely a direct reference to 2001: a space Odyssey, idk if this has special lore significance but in the 2001 one movies the monolith has something to do with life

I was lucky enough to have a short conversation with Mr. Szymanski and the guy is super nice as well but I should have expected that since it seems like everyone in horror seems to be some of the nicest and funniest people around

on the topic of there being no concrete answers: I love that there are many things you present as objectively true about the game (because you just naturally assumed them to be the obvious conclusion) that I didn't think at all. for example you see the building photo as evidence of prior life on AT-5, but I saw it as evidence that pieces of an inhabited planet were teleported there along with humans/their blood, and that maybe these moons are ENTIRELY made up of dislocated planets, and their current inhabitants came about later

"I'm a simple man, I see a video talking about Iron Lung, I click." Cheers from reddit.

47:49 if you consider how developed this world is, it really hammers in fully that they did not expect you to survive. The submarine you’re sent in is comparable to actual trash when you think of what else they might have

Ive been anticipating this video for over a year now, amazing content

This is awesome, watched another video about this game, but never had the courage to play it my self:D