Monthly Brief: October 2026

"The large majority of people told us it was the best thing at the convention. We weren't expecting that." – The team after SIM Gaming Expo

Faction Wars Is Becoming Real

Last month, we told you it was time to build Faction Wars.

This month, we can finally say that we're beginning to move beyond the prototype stage and into actually implementing those systems in Iron Rebellion. 

For months, much of Faction Wars has existed as individual systems, design documents, experiments, and prototypes as we've worked through one enormous question: How do you take everything that makes Iron Rebellion fun in the cockpit and connect it to a larger war happening across an entire galaxy?

We're starting to find the answer.

The galactic map has now been through a few rounds of testing during our Friday community playtests, and the response has been incredibly encouraging. We're experimenting with how players move through the galaxy, how battles connect to the larger conflict, and,  most importantly, whether interacting with this larger strategic layer is actually fun.

Some of our original assumptions are changing as a result. One example is the Aperture, which we've previously discussed as a major destination within the Faction Wars universe. As the galactic map becomes playable, we're reconsidering exactly how the Aperture should function based on what we're learning from the mechanics themselves. Rather than forcing the game to conform to ideas we came up with months ago, we're letting playtests show us where the fun is and building around it.

We're also learning a lot about what happens when the combat systems we've already built meet a larger Faction Wars experience. That means balancing isn't simply about making enemies harder or easier. We're having to think about how individual mech abilities behave when players encounter completely different objectives, enemy compositions, and situations.

Stealth has been a great example. During testing, we found situations where stealth mechs could remain effectively invisible indefinitely in certain game modes. What sounds like a powerful ability on paper can quickly become an exploit when the systems surrounding it don't create opportunities for detection or counterplay. So we're building those systems.

If you're curious about the future of Iron Rebellion, join us for a Friday playtest. They’re every Friday in our Discord at 5:30 pm EST. You'll get one of the earliest looks at the systems that are beginning to form the foundation of Faction Wars, and your feedback genuinely helps us figure out what comes next.

Iron Rebellion Went Full Motion Sim

September took Iron Rebellion somewhere we had never been before: SIM Gaming Expo in Chicago.

We arrived at an event largely built around racing and flight simulation with a VR mech game running on a DOF Reality H4 motion simulator and we genuinely didn't know how people would respond. The response was overwhelming.

Again and again, attendees told us that Iron Rebellion was one of their favorite, and often their favorite, experiences at the convention. The enthusiasm for bringing a fully interactive mech cockpit into a motion simulator caught even us by surprise and the sim community welcomed us immediately.

The teams from DOF Reality, Pimax, VR Villa, and Dawn of Jets went above and beyond to help us elevate the experience throughout the weekend. We also saw an incredible amount of videos, photos, and other content coming out of the sim racing and sim flight communities after the show.

Apparently, there was room for another kind of pilot. In fact, the response to us at the event was strong enough that the Expo has expanded its identity beyond racing and flight simulation to explicitly include mech pilots. We couldn't have asked for a better welcome.

Making a Mech Move

Getting Iron Rebellion onto a motion simulator wasn't as simple as plugging a PC into the rig. It required us to step into an entirely new area of development: motion telemetry.

Working closely with Mark from DOF Reality, we built the systems needed to translate what your mech is doing inside Iron Rebellion into physical movement on a supported motion rig. Once we had the fundamentals working, we started asking a much more interesting question: What should piloting a giant mech actually feel like?

When your mech jumps, the simulator can pitch with the movement. While hovering, a randomized heave helps create the sensation of a massive machine suspended in the air. Directional hit detection allows impacts to physically communicate where an attack came from. Sprinting introduces surge and sway to recreate the movement of being strapped inside a cockpit while several tons of machinery charge across the battlefield.

And we're not finished.

The motion experience is currently in beta for DOF Reality owners while we make adjustments based on what we learned at the Expo. Iron Rebellion telemetry has been implemented in Sim Racing Studio, and we're working toward SimHub support.

Iron Rebellion Is Coming to PSVR2

There's another major project officially underway. We're working on the PlayStation VR2 version of Iron Rebellion.

Right now, much of that development is foundational. We're separating existing systems into abstraction layers so Iron Rebellion can communicate correctly with Steam, Meta, and PlayStation without requiring completely separate versions of core systems like authentication and in-app purchases.

It's not particularly glamorous work, but it's the infrastructure required to bring Iron Rebellion to another platform properly. We're also working through the process of securing Iron Rebellion's product page on PlayStation so players can begin adding the game to their PlayStation wishlists.

Our current target is a December launch for PSVR2 and we'll have much more to share as we get closer.

Offline Mode Is Here

September also brought another frequently requested feature to Iron Rebellion: offline mode.

If your internet connection disappears, you can now continue hosting your own matches offline. When your connection returns, Iron Rebellion will automatically transition back to its normal online functionality.

Around the Community

The community has been busy too.

ShieldOfJustice continues to stream Iron Rebellion on a regular basis, which is awesome when you’re learning the ropes. Orazal continues to impress us with custom paint jobs, including a particularly great hawk-themed camo. LuckyFrenchGuy has been putting together some fun designs as well. Basically, the paint-jobs channel in Discord is the place to be.

And finally, we need to give a special thank you to Brian, who traveled all the way from Nevada with his grandfather to join us at SIM Gaming Expo. Brian spent most of the show helping us teach attendee after attendee how to pilot a mech. Having someone from the community make that kind of trip, and then jump in to help us introduce complete strangers to Iron Rebellion, meant a tremendous amount to the entire team. Thank you, Brian.

Where We Go From Here

October places us back to the thing we've been talking about all year: Faction Wars.

We're watching people interact with the galactic map. We're finding strategies we didn't anticipate. We're discovering mechanics that work differently in practice than they did on paper. We're changing ideas we've held onto for months because we've found something more fun. And increasingly, we're taking those experiments and putting them into the actual game.

There is still an enormous amount of work ahead of us.

We're a small independent team building Faction Wars while simultaneously supporting the live game, expanding onto new hardware, bringing Iron Rebellion to PSVR2, and occasionally figuring out how to make a several-hundred-pound motion simulator move like a giant robot.

But the pieces are coming together.

If you want to see where Faction Wars is headed, join us for a Friday playtest. If you have feedback about the game you're playing today, keep sending it. Post in Discord. Leave a comment. Show us the weird thing you discovered.

We're listening.

See you on the battlefield.

– Black Beach Studio