Nuclear Apocalypse Merchant Simulator puts you behind a sealed bunker door as a merchant selling scarce goods to survivors in a ruined world. A free demo arrives on Steam this week, and the launch trailer gives the first clear look at the cramped rooms, trade hatches, and stockpiles you will be working from.
Quick answer: The demo releases October 16, 2026 at 13:00 UTC on Steam, free to download, from developer Soft Tragedy Studio and publisher PlayWay S.A.
Release time: October 16, 2026, 13:00 UTC
What the game is
You play a single merchant locked inside an isolated bunker after a nuclear collapse. The outside world is dangerous, so you never leave to shop. Instead, you resell whatever supplies come your way to the survivors and factions who come knocking at your trade window. Every sale, and every item you choose to hold back, shifts the balance of power among the groups fighting it out beyond your walls.
The premise makes no effort to hide its ruthlessness: your explicit aim is wealth, regardless of the harm to those you trade with. Events beyond the bunker drive demand. A rise in violence makes weapons profitable; when things settle, survivors turn to beer, comforts, and vices. You choose your inventory, decide what to conceal, and determine which customers receive fair terms.
What the launch trailer reveals
The trailer runs in first person throughout, with no visible hands or body. You see only the items you hold and the equipment you operate. It moves through a series of connected spaces inside the bunker, each one tied to a different part of running the shop.
Early shots show living quarters with a bed and shelving, where a pill container is picked up and handled to demonstrate the game’s item physics. From there the footage passes through an office with a desk, a vintage computer terminal, and a blackboard, with a handgun floating in the foreground. A wall furnace burns openly beside a control panel, and a green glass liquor bottle is rotated in front of a frosted window for a closer look.
The bunker’s trading window is a sliding metal slot; once it opens, a rotating hatch delivers an olive-drab ammo crate to the customer. The camera sweeps through the depot, showing wooden ammunition crates in stacks, artillery shells lined up, and boxed supplies arranged on metal racks. The footage ends with a welded white triangular emblem beside a card confirming the demo date.
Radiation is part of the handling loop. One sequence shows metal shelves loaded with hazardous military boxes labeled B-220 while the player holds a yellow analog survey meter reading in mR/hr. That meter is the Geiger-style tool you use to gauge how dangerous an item is before it goes into your stock.
The systems you manage
Rather than a standard health bar, the game relies on several connected systems. Radiation and mental stability are the two key values. Staying clear of radioactive goods is manageable, but the stress of isolation is tougher to escape; reaching maximum madness ends the run.
The Intranet
Craters have severed the internet cables, leaving the network dead. The Intranet takes its place, assembled from salvaged components that still function. Use your terminal to choose destinations for scavengers to recover what remains, or send mercenaries into specific areas to steer the market by more dubious means.
Scavengers and expeditions
Scavenger teams do your restocking, but they do not always come back, and they do not always return with what you need or with their best finds. Because they skim the good loot, you can head out personally into certain zones, load up a van, pack it tight, and drive home.
Factions and the bunker
Keeping the warring factions in balance is its own task. They use your weapons against each other, and if one side wins outright, it no longer needs you. Expanding and securing the bunker lets you store larger, more valuable items, while decorating it helps hold your sanity together. The people who trade with you today may come back to take what you have tomorrow.
Demo details, platform, and requirements
The demo is a single-player, Windows-only download with Steam Achievements and Save Anytime support. It is free and excluded from Steam Family Sharing. The full game is planned for 2026 with no firm date yet, and you can wishlist it on the game’s Steam demo page to be notified when it unlocks.
| Detail | Demo |
|---|---|
| Release | Oct 16, 2026, 13:00 UTC |
| Price | Free |
| Platform | Windows 10 64-bit |
| Memory | 4 GB RAM |
| Graphics | GTX 1050 / R9 270X |
| Storage | 11 GB |
The demo supports 14 languages, with English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Polish, Brazilian and European Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish all covered for interface and subtitles. The full release currently lists a slightly higher spec, asking for 6 GB of RAM and 21 GB of storage.
Soft Tragedy Studio flags that some images inside the store and the game were created using AI, and that the content includes mature material such as scenes involving fire, alcohol and tobacco, and an indirect killing scene.
If the demo lands as pitched, it should give a full slice of the trading loop, from reading radiation on incoming stock to sending teams out and juggling faction demand, before the complete version arrives later in 2026.
