Starward Industries, the team behind The Invincible, unveiled their next project on November 28, 2025, during the INDIE Live Expo with a scorching new gameplay trailer. Into the Fire is a cataclysm extraction survival game set during a catastrophic volcanic eruption on Dante’s Archipelago. Instead of fighting enemies, you’re racing against time and nature itself to rescue as many people and animals as possible before the island collapses into molten chaos. The game launches in Early Access on Steam and GOG sometime in 2026, with a playtest coming soon.
What Is Into the Fire
Into the Fire casts you as a bold explorer on Dante’s Archipelago when a volcanic eruption begins tearing the island chain apart. Your mission isn’t combat or competition, it’s survival and rescue. With the world literally collapsing around you, every expedition becomes a high-stakes race to save lives through lava flows, ash storms, and crumbling landscapes while uncovering the island’s dark secrets and confronting supernatural anomalies awakening from the catastrophe.
The game blends extraction survival mechanics with firefighting action and psychological horror elements. You’ll navigate dynamically changing environments where terrain collapses in real-time, outrun firestorms, battle supernatural phenomena tied to ancient legends, and make impossible choices about who lives and who dies when you can’t save everyone. Between expeditions, you return to your Hub, a sanctuary where you craft tools, upgrade equipment, tend to rescued animals in a garden, and piece together the island’s ominous history.
The Retropunk Arsenal
Starward Industries describes Into the Fire’s aesthetic as capturing “the golden age of scientific ambition intertwined with folklore and the supernatural.” The equipment reflects this retro-futuristic vision with unconventional firefighting weapons and gadgets that feel pulled from 1960s science fiction. You’ll wield suppression pistols, extinguishing shotguns that spray fire-retardant foam, and fire bomb launchers that create controlled burns to redirect lava flows.
Beyond weapons, you’ll use seismic scanners to predict volcanic activity, deploy fireproof shields to protect survivors during evacuations, and pilot unique retro vehicles including acid-resistant boats for navigating toxic lakes. The traversal tools help you cross impossible terrain, whether that means grappling across lava rivers or using pneumatic boots to leap over collapsing ground. Everything has that chunky, analog retro-tech aesthetic mixing science with mysticism.
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Genre | Cataclysm extraction survival |
| Setting | Dante’s Archipelago during volcanic eruption |
| Core Loop | Rescue missions, resource management, hub upgrades |
| Combat Focus | Anti-combat, tactical firefighting and survival |
| Aesthetic | Retropunk with folklore and supernatural elements |
| Platforms | PC (Steam, GOG) |
| Release Window | Early Access 2026 |
| Developer | Starward Industries (The Invincible) |
What Extraction Survival Actually Means
Extraction games typically refer to competitive shooters like Escape from Tarkov or Hunt: Showdown where players enter dangerous maps, gather loot while fighting AI and other players, then extract at specific points to keep their rewards. Dying means losing everything. Into the Fire adapts this formula for a single-player or co-op disaster scenario. Instead of shooting other players for loot, you’re fighting the environment and supernatural threats to rescue people.
The extraction mechanic creates tension because each expedition has limited time before the volcano makes areas completely inaccessible. You might reach a village with 20 survivors but only have capacity to evacuate 12 before the next pyroclastic flow hits. Do you save as many as you can and retreat, or risk everything trying to find additional transport? The stakes aren’t your gear, they’re human lives. That moral weight distinguishes Into the Fire from typical extraction shooters while maintaining the core tension of needing to successfully extract or lose everything.
The Supernatural Element
The gameplay trailer and description emphasize that Into the Fire isn’t just a realistic disaster simulator. Ancient forces and strange anomalies are awakening as the volcano erupts, turning the archipelago into something that crosses “the gates of hell.” You’ll face mythic volcanic demons rooted in local folklore, encounter bizarre phenomena that defy scientific explanation, and discover dark rituals buried in the volcanic abyss.
This supernatural layer distinguishes Into the Fire from straightforward disaster games. The trailer shows mysterious glowing entities, impossible geological formations, and hints at forces that might be causing or exacerbating the eruption beyond natural volcanic activity. Whether these elements are truly supernatural or have scientific explanations remains to be seen, but they promise to add psychological horror and mystery to the survival gameplay.
The Hub and Progression
Your Hub serves as the central progression system where you manage resources between expeditions. Here you craft essential survival tools using materials scavenged from the disaster zones, upgrade your firefighting equipment to handle increasingly dangerous conditions, and customize your loadout to match different playstyles. Want to focus on rapid extractions? Prioritize mobility gear. Prefer thorough exploration? Invest in scanning and detection equipment.
The Hub also includes a garden where you tend to rescued plants and animals, providing both mechanical benefits and emotional investment in your rescue efforts. You can rest between missions, though with the volcano escalating over time, every moment of downtime means more lives at risk. The space also serves as your investigation center where you piece together the island’s history through documents, artifacts, and survivor testimonies, uncovering why this disaster happened and what the supernatural elements represent.
The Starward Industries Pedigree
Starward Industries launched in 2018, founded by developers from CD Projekt Red (The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077) and Techland (Dying Light, Dead Island). Their debut game The Invincible released in November 2023 as an adaptation of Stanisław Lem’s 1964 hard science fiction novel. The game featured an atompunk aesthetic, dialogue-driven narrative, and philosophical themes about evolution and humanity’s place in the universe.
The Invincible received mixed but generally positive reviews. Critics praised the visuals, voice acting, retrofuturistic design, and faithful adaptation of Lem’s concepts. IGN gave it a low score citing limited interactivity, while outlets like Adventure Gamers and XboxEra praised it as a successful experiment in novel-to-game adaptation. The game demonstrated Starward’s strength in crafting immersive worlds with strong art direction and thoughtful narratives, skills that appear to be carrying over to Into the Fire’s volcanic disaster setting.
FAQs
When does Into the Fire release?
Into the Fire launches in Early Access on Steam and GOG sometime in 2026. No specific month or date has been announced yet. Starward Industries confirmed a playtest is coming soon, though registration details haven’t been shared. Sign up on the Steam page to get notified when the playtest opens.
Is it single-player or multiplayer?
Starward Industries hasn’t explicitly confirmed multiplayer, but the extraction survival genre typically supports co-op. The game’s description focuses on “you” as a single explorer, suggesting single-player is the primary mode. Whether co-op exists for rescue missions remains unclear until Starward provides more details or the playtest launches.
Is there combat in Into the Fire?
The developers call it an “anti-combat action RPG,” meaning combat exists but isn’t the primary focus. You’ll battle volcanic demons and supernatural phenomena using tactical extinguishing weapons, but the emphasis is on firefighting, rescue, and survival rather than traditional shooting. Think more about suppressing threats than eliminating enemies.
What platforms will it be on?
Into the Fire is currently announced only for PC via Steam and GOG. No console versions have been mentioned. Given The Invincible launched on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S alongside PC, console versions of Into the Fire might come after Early Access, but nothing is confirmed.
How does it compare to The Invincible?
The Invincible was a narrative-focused walking simulator emphasizing story and atmosphere over gameplay challenge. Into the Fire appears to be far more gameplay-driven with survival mechanics, resource management, equipment upgrades, and extraction tension. Both share Starward’s love of retro-futuristic aesthetics and thoughtful world-building, but they target different audiences.
Who should play Into the Fire?
According to Starward, the game appeals to three audiences: action seekers who want combat with volcanic fire and demons, survival enthusiasts who enjoy resource management and crafting in post-apocalyptic atmospheres, and emotion lovers interested in moral dilemmas and helping survivors. If any of those appeal, Into the Fire might be worth watching.
What does cataclysm extraction survival mean?
It’s Starward’s term for blending extraction game mechanics (enter dangerous area, gather resources, must successfully extract to keep rewards) with disaster survival elements. Instead of fighting other players or looting buildings, you’re racing against volcanic destruction to rescue people before extraction points become inaccessible. The cataclysm aspect refers to the escalating natural disaster driving the time pressure.
Will there be a demo before Early Access?
Starward confirmed a playtest is coming soon, which will likely function as a limited demo. Whether this is a closed beta requiring sign-up or an open playtest available to everyone hasn’t been specified. Check the Steam page regularly or follow Starward Industries on social media for playtest announcements.
Why This Matters
Into the Fire represents an ambitious pivot for Starward Industries. The Invincible was a contemplative, narrative-driven experience that prioritized atmosphere and philosophy over traditional gameplay. Into the Fire goes in the opposite direction, emphasizing mechanics, progression systems, and moment-to-moment tension while still maintaining Starward’s signature world-building and aesthetic vision. It’s a test of whether the studio can succeed across different game genres.
The disaster survival angle also feels timely given increasing climate-related catastrophes globally. While Into the Fire adds supernatural elements and retropunk styling, the core concept of racing to save lives during environmental collapse resonates differently now than it might have a decade ago. Whether Starward handles this thematic weight with the same thoughtfulness they brought to The Invincible’s philosophical questions about humanity will determine if Into the Fire becomes more than just a mechanically interesting survival game. The Early Access launch in 2026 will show if this volcanic extraction experiment pays off.