Steam Next Fest has arrived once again. Hundreds upon hundreds of demos for upcoming games are now at players’ fingertips, and we’re downloading and playing many demos ourselves based on personal excitement, curiosity, and positive word-of-mouth. With so many demos to consider, you may be struggling to decide which ones may be worth your time; that’s where we come in. Some GI editors are sharing their favorite Next Fest demos so far and why we think they’re worth a look. Keep checking back to this list, as we’ll be updating it over the week until Steam Next Fest concludes on Monday, March 2.
SoulQuest
Developer: SoulBlade Studio
I adore stylish action games, but it’s not often I see this slick form of combat successfully translated in 2D. SoulQuest, an upcoming indie game by SoulBlade Studio, does a hell of a job of pulling this off. Players control Alys, a warrior on a quest to slay the Celtic gods holding her husband captive. Armed with her trusty blade, combat consists of nailing hyper-fast combos, popping skeletons and other mythical beasts airborne, and juggling them with flashy offense that feels smooth and satisfying. Although the level design is basic and the dialogue leaves a bit to be desired, the action feels very good so far, and I look forward to seeing how much more polished it can become before arriving sometime this year. – Marcus Stewart
Check out the demo here.
Arkheron
Developer: Bonfire Studios
Arkheron is a game I recently spent two and a half hours playing for a preview, and though its battle royale description didn’t inspire much excitement in me, I finished my gameplay ready for more. This PvP isometric action game pits 15 trios against each other and looks like Diablo, with dark fantasy dungeons to loot and creatures to destroy, but despite what its POV would have you believe, it actually plays a lot like a shooter. Because the camera rotates around your character as the focal point, aiming your on-screen reticle requires the accuracy and precision of a game like Valorant.
What I especially enjoyed in my preview was discovering new weapons and loot as my trio attempted to climb to the top of the tower through vicious PvP arena fights. Most of the gear, save for healing items and the like, is that of 10 Eternals, god-like beings that rotate in and out of the loot pool. Collect two of an Eternals’ item, and you gain a set bonus – collect all four, and you transform into them for some wild combative effects. There is a lot more that impressed me in Arkheron, and you can read my full thoughts here in my preview, but I say all this to recommend that you check it out on PC! As part of Steam Next Fest, developer Bonfire Studios has turned its servers on for 24/7 access to Arkheron from today through March 2. – Wesley LeBlanc
Check out the demo here
Titanium Court
Developer: AP Thomson
To call this a match-3 game would be insufficient, at best. The core mechanics of sliding tiles and erasing lines, then sending out automated troops from your keep to battle other enemy forts, should be easy enough to grasp in a round or two. It’s the surreal style and tone surrounding Titanium Court that makes developer AP Thomson’s game so intriguing, though. Between the ebbing High and Low Tides of war, you’re led through a dreamlike narrative, where you flit between new conversations and rooms as the stage lifts and reassembles itself around you. The overt nods towards A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with the titular faerie court and one of your assistants, Puck, keep things joyful, strange, and altogether mesmerizing. There’s some magic at work here, and I’m eager to see it play out. – Eric Van Allen
Check out the demo here.
Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors
Developer: Poncle
Vampire Survivors developer Poncle essentially upended Steam in 2022, becoming the namesake for an entire subgenre. It’s fitting, then, that as Steam Next Fest is flooded with Survivor-likes, Poncle returns with a new spin on its own formula, trading hordes and timers for first-person dungeon-crawling action in Vampire Crawlers. Everything is wonderfully nostalgic, from the framed UI to the arrow controls for turning your facing. While the implements of Survivors are still here – Whips, Knives, and Holy Bibles alike – what matters more is sequencing, upgrading, and linking them together into devastating combos. Death returns you to a town for some cross-run upgrades, and then you’re back to it. If the demo’s any indication, I can see myself losing quite a few hours in commutes and late nights within these new dungeons. – Eric Van Allen
Check out the demo here.
Wild Blue Skies
Developer: Chuhai Labs
Wild Blue Skies falls squarely into the very specific but effective subgenre of games I like to call the “Fine, I’ll Do It Myselfs.” That’s to say it’s an indie-developed project heavily inspired by a beloved but dormant franchise – in this case, Star Fox. I have fond memories of Star Fox 64, specifically, and I enjoyed how Wild Blue Skies’ brief demo captured the on-rails shooting fun and cheesy vibes of the N64 classic. The cartoon-esque art direction looks good, flying and shooting feel smooth, and the comms chatter is delightfully dorky. It remains to be seen if Wild Blue Skies offers other twists to make it more than a faithful homage to Fox McCloud, but if you’re tired of waiting for Nintendo to deliver a new Star Fox, you should absolutely give this demo a look. – Marcus Stewart
Check out the demo here.
Call of the Elder Gods
Developer: Out of the Blue Games
I really liked 2020’s Call of the Sea (check out my review), so I’m very much on board with this upcoming sequel, based on its entertaining demo. Set roughly 20 years later, players control Evangeline Drayton, a university student haunted by strange dreams of a mysterious artifact. Her plight is interwoven with the similarly supernatural struggles of Professor Harry Everhart, the husband of Call of the Sea protagonist, Norah. The meaty Steam demo lets players experience the game’s prologue and first chapter, which largely unfolds within a mysterious manor filled with fun puzzles to unravel. I quickly fell into a cozy zen of collecting clues and connecting dots, to the point I was disappointed when the “Thanks for playing!” graphic appeared to signal the demo’s conclusion. I’m looking forward to diving headfirst into another intriguing mystery in this universe. – Marcus Stewart
Check out the demo here.
Zero Parades: For Dead Spies
Developer: ZA/UM
The splintering of ZA/UM after its critically acclaimed debut Disco Elysium has been the subject of many, many stories that would be too much to get into in a single blurb. Suffice to say, numerous games and studios have been born from the ashes of Disco Elysium, and so has Zero Parades, still made by ZA/UM. Centered on a spy brought out of soft retirement, only for her first mission to go absolutely haywire right from the start, it’s a little more espionage thriller than pulp detective story. It works though, and the developers at current ZA/UM found a clever evolution of Elysium’s tabletop-akin mechanics in its system of perks and stressors; the push-and-pull of exerting your abilities to force successful dice rolls, all the while accruing anxiety or fatigue that will force you to de-skill one of your perks once it maxes out, places the power structure of Zero Parades on a knife’s edge of long-term risk versus immediate reward. The demo is worth playing, even just academically, to see where the new ZA/UM is heading. – Eric Van Allen
Check out the demo here.
Esoteric Ebb
Developer: Christoffer Bodegård
Another Disco Elysium-like, Esoteric Ebb takes many framing cues from ZA/UM’s seminal work, but paints those colors within the lines of high fantasy, namely Dungeons & Dragons. As a Cleric sent to find out why a tea shop exploded several days before a major election, your inner monologue is dominated by the likes of Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom rather than Volition or Esprit De Corps. Perhaps too dominated, to be frank. In my early playtime, I seemed to be having very long diatribes in my head, as nearly every voice wanted to hop in and say something. Esoteric Ebb’s writing is excellent, though, and I always enjoy a smart twist on a classic setting. This is a game where the likely endpoint of charisma-maxxing is becoming an apolitical people-pleaser, and that kind of sharp direction is enough to lock me in. – Eric Van Allen
Check out the demo here.
The Eternal Life of Goldman
Developer: Weappy Studio
Perhaps the most visually impressive demo I’ve played thus far is The Eternal Life of Goldman. This 2D platformer features stunning hand-drawn, classically rendered animation that needs to be seen in motion to be fully appreciated. Players control an elderly adventurer who bounces through fantastical platforming levels atop his cane à la Scrooge McDuck in the classic DuckTales game. His customizable cane can be outfitted with different parts, such as a hook handle that lets him swing off of rings and pull objects, or various shafts that determine how high he bounces. The controls feel great, and the challenging precision platforming gauntlets are fun tests, especially because it’s hard not to be distracted by the insane artistic details in every scene. With an entire archipelago filled with stunning locations to discover and an intriguing layer of meta-storytelling with a mother and her sick child narrating the adventure, The Eternal Life of Goldman had my curiosity when I first laid eyes on it last year; after playing its roughly 90-minute demo, it has firmly earned my attention. – Marcus Stewart
Check out the demo here.
Cursed Words
Developer: Buried Things
Cursed Words is a roguelike word search game, and while I promise I know how to spell, my favorite runs have been the ones where I don’t have to. Its structure is similar to Balatro’s, where each letter costs a certain number of points and items (stamps and stickers, in this case) either add bonus score or multiply your final score. If you’re good at word searches, you’re off to a pretty good start, but some items and upgrades can drastically change your strategy to the point that finding long words becomes a secondary concern.
One item rewarded me for each tile of a certain color I didn’t use, and another spawned in wild card tiles (indicated by question marks) whenever I met certain conditions. The beauty of the wild cards is that the game automatically fills in whatever letter fits the word you’re trying to spell; in my best run, I got enough items that generated wild card tiles that I could just chain a bunch together (and throw in an “s” or “ed” at the end where possible), avoid red tiles, and get tons of points. It made a great first impression, and I’m looking forward to experimenting with lots of different strategies (or as I like to spell it, ST???EG??S). – Charles Harte
Check out the demo here.
GladiEATers
Developer: MilkBubblesGames
GladiEATers is a turn-based RPG with a simple twist – you have to cook your party members before each battle. In a world where food can come to life (thanks to the discovery of the CAL particle), chefs become gladiators, pitting their dishes against an opponent’s. In-game, that means you actually have to successfully cook your battlers before each encounter, using simple, hard-to-master minigames to perform tasks like chopping vegetables or frying an egg. It’s kind of like Cooking Mama meets Pokémon. The character art, specifically of the human characters, is also fantastic, with an impressive level of detail. As is the case with many Next Fest games, it probably needs some more time in the oven, but I’m excited to dig in once it’s warm and ready. – Charles Harte
Check out the demo here.
