The Game Census
Boiling Steel: Preface cover art

Boiling Steel: Preface

MIROWIN · 2020-01-10

Steam

ActionAdventureFree To Play

Modes: Single player · Perspectives: First person, Virtual Reality

Releases: Jan 09, 2020 (PC (Microsoft Windows))

They promised a good job and a bright future. But advertising posters always lie. Instead of a quiet life - war. Instead of a body, a steel shell. Instead of weapons - tools. Thousands of light years from home. You are alone. Nowhere to run. Good luck my friend...

Boiling Steel: Preface is an Action, Adventure, and Free To Play game released in 2020, priced at free-to-play, with an estimated owner base of 50,000 .. 100,000 and a Mostly Positive review sentiment (78% of 121 reviews).

0
playing now
77%
positive of 121 reviews
Mostly Positive
steam's rating (official)
50,000–100,000
owners (SteamSpy est.)
pending
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
Unknown
Steam Deck (Valve)
SteamOS: 0
Free
steam price (US)

0 players in-game as of 2026-10-14 19:00 UTC (census sample)

You are one of many who set off in search of a better life in the distant bastion of scientific progress. Your goal is a colony planet, free from bureaucratic, religious and other radical restrictions. Here they research and freely use industrial teleportation, transfer of consciousness and other technologies prohibited in the inhabited worlds. Factories, power plants, mines and residential complexes of the planet are fully automated. All the dirty and hard work is done by robotic shells controlled by the operator’s mind. It is a high-tech paradise. But here, something went wrong.(Storyline via IGDB)

Health check

Quiet
  • · 0 players in-game at the last census sample.
  • · 11 reviews in the last 8 weeks (~1/week).
  • · Review velocity up 22% vs the prior 8 weeks.
  • · Current weekly pace is under 5% of the all-time peak week (62 reviews).
  • · Top 36% of 27,727 Action games in the census by review count.

Health tier since 2026-09-01

Review momentum

PositiveNegative
535320202025Week of 2020-01-01: 53 positiveWeek of 2020-01-01: 9 negativeWeek of 2020-02-01: 17 positiveWeek of 2020-02-01: 5 negativeWeek of 2020-03-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2020-03-01: 5 negativeWeek of 2020-04-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2020-04-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2020-05-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2020-07-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2020-08-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2020-08-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2020-09-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2020-11-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2021-01-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2021-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-04-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2021-05-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-06-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2021-07-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2021-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-12-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2023-02-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2023-04-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2023-11-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2024-02-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2024-02-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-04-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2024-07-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2024-09-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2024-10-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2024-12-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2025-03-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2025-11-01: 1 positive
Weekly review counts (Steam review histogram). Positive above the line, negative below.

Players online

002026-09-15 04:00 — 0 players2026-09-16 13:00 — 0 players2026-09-17 20:00 — 0 players2026-09-19 04:00 — 0 players2026-09-20 11:00 — 0 players2026-09-21 19:00 — 0 players2026-09-23 02:00 — 0 players2026-09-24 10:00 — 0 players2026-09-25 17:00 — 0 players2026-09-27 01:00 — 0 players2026-09-28 08:00 — 0 players2026-09-29 16:00 — 0 players2026-09-30 23:00 — 0 players2026-10-02 07:00 — 0 players2026-10-03 14:00 — 0 players2026-10-04 23:00 — 0 players2026-10-06 06:00 — 0 players2026-10-07 14:00 — 0 players2026-10-08 21:00 — 0 players2026-10-10 05:00 — 0 players2026-10-11 12:00 — 0 players2026-10-12 20:00 — 0 players2026-10-14 03:00 — 0 players2026-10-14 19:00 — 0 players
Concurrent players, hourly average, last 30 days (census samples).

Details

WindowsSingle-playerTracked Controller SupportVR OnlyFamily Sharing

1 supported languages: English

Player tags

VRFPSIndieActionAdventureFree to PlaySingleplayer

Census log

Computed from census-recorded observations only — dates are observation dates.

Players also track

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Similarity via IGDB.

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