A guide to the best demos of Steam Next Fest

Today marks the beginning of Steam’s first Next Fest of 2025. This week Steam users will have access to hundreds of new demos for upcoming games that might be gone by next week. With so much to choose from, it’s hard to decide what to spend your limited gaming time on. Here’s a quick guide to some of the biggest demos that you should have on your radar this week.

Steam Next Fest demos that should be on your radar this week

Today, there were two major showcases for indie games and some of them have demos out now for Steam Next Fest. First, the Annapurna Interactive showcase revealed nine games, four of them have demos available today. Then the ID@Xbox showcase revealed twenty-one games coming to Game Pass, but several of them have demos on Steam too. Last Friday, I also posted about five demos available over the weekend, but if you didn’t get to those games yet, I would still recommend trying those. Anyway, there are a lot of great demos to get to, so hopefully there are at least a few you are interested in spending some time on.

With this article, I’m going to do my best to separate these demos into various categories. That way, if you know what kind of game you’re interested in trying out, you can jump to that section using the table of contents below this paragraph. I have played some of these demos, but not all of them, so I apologize if any of them are a little off the mark. But hopefully this is a helpful way to narrow down your search!

• Steam Next Fest demos that should be on your radar this week
• Rogue-likes & Rogue-lites
• Strategy & Tactics
• Action & Adventure
• Narrative
• Horror
• Puzzle
• Casual & Exploration
• Conclusion

Rogue-likes & Rogue-lites

One of the most popular genres right now, especially for indie games, is rouge-likes. These games are often challenging, involve some kind of randomness of procedural generation, and might take a few tries before completing the goal. Examples of this would include Balatro, Hades, and Spelunky. If that’s the kind of demo you’re interested in, here’s a few that might fit what you’re looking for, and the genre might find its way into other categories too:

• Lost in Random: The Eternal Die: an action RPG set in a fantasy world where you have a small sentient dice companion that can be used at just the right moments.
• Reignbreaker: a hack and slash high-octane action roguelike with a medievalpunk aesthetic.
• Haste: Broken Worlds: run, swing, fly, and everything else through procedurally generated worlds to outpace the end of the universe behind you.
• Scaravan 66: Described as “a dungeon crawl at 100 miles per hour,” outdrive the devil in this action roguelike as you tear down the highway, fighting other cars, demons, and more.
• As We Descend: Defend and explore a treacherous city from inhuman creatures in this turn-based roguelike deckbuilder.
• Castle v Castle: Face off against other castle builders in this turn-based 1v1 card game. Strategize whether to build up your defenses, attack your opponent, or make use of powerful magic.
• Monster Train 2: The long-awaited sequel to the popular roguelike deckbuilder. Manage three-tiered card battles between angels and demons.
• Aethermancer: Build a team of monsters as you journey through the void, engaging in 3v3 turn-based battles with enemy monsters. Defeat only makes you stronger for the next run.
• Kill the Music: Take on hordes of enemies using musical instruments in this rhythm-based action roguelike.
• Nautical Survival: Survive as long as you can in this nautically stylized roguelike bullet hell. Upgrade your boat, abilities, and explore a vast ocean full of creatures that want to sink you.
• Grimoire Groves: While this colorful game about witches might seem like a farming simulator, it is also a action rogue-lite dungeon crawler. Restore the groves, learn spells, and grow plant-like creatures in this unique rogue-lite.

These kinds of games seem to be popping up almost everywhere these days. But I’m sure that will continue once people stop playing them.

Strategy & Tactics

Looking for something strategical, challenging, and thought inducing? Whether it’s real time strategy or turn-based, there’s a great selection of strategy and tactics demos during this week’s Steam Next Fest.

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown: This licensed game from Strange Scaffold (I Am Your Beast), has the turtles tackling deadly new threats in enclosed tactical fights. Splinter and Shredder are gone. The turtles are on their own.
2. Grit & Valor: 1949: a real-time strategy roguelike set in an alternate timeline of World War 2. Command an elite mech squadron to liberate the British Isles.
3. Rift Riff: Enter a rift, set up your towers, and fend off waves of enemies in this minimalist isometric tower defense game.
4. Blightstone: Death is key to learning how to survive and succeed in this turn-based roguelike. Strategize character placement, environmental advantages, and resource management or perish.
5. Wartorn: Build a powerful squad of elemental creatures in this single-player roguelike real time strategy game from the lead designer of BioShock and the creative director of Borderlands.
6. Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainoids: Gather Brainium, build a base, and lead the charge in the front lines against the Brainoids. Play as Chip or Claws, or both in couch co-op, in this action strategy game.
7. Day of the Shell: Travel across islands with your trusty revolver in this “one-click, one-turn” tactical roguelite. Upgrade your powers and abilities and try to appease the gods.
8. Knightica: Place your units in strategical locations to find synergy in this roguelike auto-battler. Recruit powerful units and free the kingdom by leading your army to victory.
9. Primal Fray: Build a team of primal creatures and collect buffs in this turn-based tactical roguelite. Surprise your enemies with combos and use the terrain to your advantage.

I was surprised at the number of strategy and tactics games featured during this Steam Next Fest. Real-time strategy games might have a big year this year.

Action & Adventure

Sometimes these two categories can be put together, but sometimes not. It’s not the clearest distinction, but nearly all these demos fall somewhere between action or adventure.

• Empyreal: A complex, challenging, action RPG. Venture inside an unexplored Monolith on a far-flung planet to solve its mysteries.
• Skin Deep: Save a spaceship that’s been boarded by pirates in this immersive FPS with an odd sense of humor. Avoid detection and creatively take out your enemies without bringing the whole crew down on yourself.
• Rusty Rabbit: Play as a mech-pilot rabbit in this side-scrolling action platformer. Customize your tools, face off against bosses.
• Demon Tides: Explore the open seas with an eclectic cast of characters in this expressive 3D platforming adventure. Explore, solve puzzles, upgrade your gear, and uncover the kingdom’s dark secrets.
• Chainstaff: This brutal action platformer has a uniquely retro style and an incredible weapon that can do it all. But you can only wield it if you’re at least half alien.
• Shotgun Cop Man: Go to hell and arrest Satan. That is your mission for this ridiculous action platformer from the makers of My Friend Pedro where you jump by firing guns.
• Ruffy and the Riverside: Copy and past textures to change how you interact with the world in this action-adventure 3D platformer. Turn waterfalls into climbable branches, freeze water into ice, and explore a unique cartoonish world.
• The Knightling: Search for your missing mentor in this open world action-adventure. Use your legendary shield as you fight and explore across a fantasy world.
• Moroi: Break free from eternal madness in this grimdark fantasy adventure. This game has a dark sense of humor along with isometric combat, a twisted narrative, and perplexing puzzles.
• Artis Impact: Explore hand-drawn environments in this turn-based pixel-art RPG. Unravel mysteries in this artistic interpretation of a post-apocalyptic future.
• Fretless: Explore a fantastical world in this gorgeous pixel-art RPG with a rhythm twist. Wield powerful legendary instruments in turn-based battles to save the world.
• Dunk Dunk: An action basketball party game for up to four players. Platform around a 2D arena and dunk the ball into the goal to score in this chaotic multiplayer experience.
• Fellowship: Team up with friends in this multiplayer fantasy dungeon crawl. Choose a class and explore the endlessly scaling dungeons.
• Voyagers of Nera: Up to ten players can gather in this multiplayer survival crafter set in a magical ocean world. Upgrade equipment and build a raft that can carry you all to the next island.
• Tails of Fate: That’s not a typo. Play as three heroes, a fox, a pig, and a koala in this beautiful pixel-art 2D action platformer with metroidvania elements and challenging souls-like boss fights.
• Corebreaker: Play as a robot designed to awaken after humanity’s defeat at the hands of machines. Delve into this fast-paced action platformer with rogue-like elements and search for your purpose.
• Streetdog BMX: Pull of incredible tricks and combos and rack up a high score in this gnarly arcade BMX game. Take on handcrafted challenges and avoid brutal spills.
• Genokids: When an alien invasion interrupts their concert, the band won’t stand for it. Fight aliens as the various band members in this over-the-top hack-and-slash action game.
• Isle of Reveries: Conquer dungeons, solve puzzles, and battle enemies in a retro-inspired, pixel-art fantasy sky island, reminiscent of top-down Legend of Zelda games, designed for a modern era.
• Isopod: Play as a pill-bug in this 3D platformer set in Australia. From the developers of Webbed, roll through landscapes, gather the support of other bugs, and fight against “the greedy Fire Ant Conglomerate.”

This group might be the most varied in terms of actual gameplay, but there’s no doubt that they will all keep you focused on the action. Shotgun Cop Man might have you rocketing through hell while Demon Tides is more about platforming and exploration.

Narrative

Games that have a large emphasis on telling a story, leading you through a narrative, give you branching dialogue options, or some are just about talking to customers.

• Wanderstop: From the writer of the subversive game The Stanley Parable, comes a narrative focused game about running a café. But that might not be all this game has to offer.
• Wax Heads: Talk to quirky customers and manage a struggling record store in this cozy-punk narrative sim. Explore a hand-crafted record selection or just hang out. No worries.
• Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3: Another demo from Strange Scaffold (I Am Your Beast). This unexpected narrative game is described as a “match-3 survival horror comedy RPG metroidvania” and I think there’s nothing other than playing the demo that will make that make sense.
• Koira: Save a puppy in this heartwarming hand-drawn adventure published by Don’t Nod. Explore, solve puzzles, and avoid hunters in this stylized world.
• Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping: Investigate a potentially haunted luxury campsite as the Duck Detective. Interact with various suspects and put together clues to solve this low-stakes mystery.
• Inhuman Resources: Sign a contract with a dubious company in this game with branching paths. Commit “unspeakable horrors” for minimum wage. Not for the faint of heart.
• The Empty Desk: Investigate an empty office in a psychological thriller detective story. Solve puzzles and explore on this detectives final case, full of secrets and twists.
• Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime: Play as Bonnie the bear and engage in games of Frogtime to lift your spirits in this quirky adventure full of odd characters and lots of frogs.
• Moves of the Diamond Hand: A first-person urban RPG “powered by dice and intrigue.” Explore an unusual city-scape full of odd encounters and strange visuals.
• AI Confidential: You are a therapist / doctor for robots. Meet and diagnose your clients in this cute and funny sci-fi game where you do your best to help troubled artificially intelligent beings.
• Promise Mascot Agency: One of the strangest demos on this list, recruit mascot friends like a living finger with anger issues and a piece of tofu in this open world narrative adventure. Prove that the Promise Mascot Agency is the best agency in Japan!

Not all of these games are simple point and clicks games, some of them are more engaged than others. Koira has some adventure to it, and Wanderstop has many simulation elements as well.

Horror

For fans of horror games, there are just a couple of options to pick from. Though, to be fair, these are just the games that are directly categorized as horror. Some of the other demos here also have some horror elements.

1. Post Trauma: Explore a twisted reality and do what you can to survive this modern-day survival horror game. Solve puzzles, utilize stealth, and fight for your life.
2. The Cecil: The Journey Begins: Your dream vacation has turned into a nightmare. Explore the dark haunted hotel to save your partner before it’s too late.
3. Order 13: You wake up in a dark warehouse with only a friendly orange cat for company. Something lurks in the shadows. Do you explore or complete the packing orders being sent in? Above all, protect the cat.
4. Circadial: Participate in a groundbreaking insomnia study that takes you through the empty halls and landscapes of your dream in an atmospheric psychological horror.
5. Last Report: Like a supernatural Firewatch, play as a night-shift park ranger who begins to notice strange happenings on camera footage. Uncover the secret at the heart of this National Park.
6. Static Dread: Guide ships to harbor as a lighthouse keeper and maintain your sanity for fifteen days in a game described as “Lovecraft meets Papers, Please.”

I searched around Steam for any more horror games that seemed worth checking out but couldn’t find much. These are great games, but of course it would be great to have more of a selection. So if you have anything to recommend let me know!

Puzzle

Every once in a while, it’s great to sit down with a satisfying puzzle game. The way a good puzzle game unlocks a part of your brain you didn’t know existed will always be enjoyable. Thankfully, there are a few great options for this Next Fest, and plenty of other games have puzzle elements too.

• Blue Prince: Explore the many rooms of a mysterious, atmospheric mansion. Create a path of rooms as you progress through each puzzle and try to find the mysterious 46th room.
• The Electrifying Incident: This short and enjoyable puzzle game has you solving puzzles with your grappling hook and avoiding electrocution. Can be completed in fifteen minutes!
• Tempopo: Described as “a psychedelic soundscape in the sky…” this game combines 3D puzzles with rhythm mechanics as you do your best to rescue musical flowers.
• Is This Seat Taken?: Play matchmaker with a group of particular people as they try to find the perfect seat on the bus, at a concert, and more.
• Chromagun 2: Dye Hard: Solve 3D puzzles using the unique color-based mechanics of this first-person-shooter without the violence expected with that kind of genre.

Puzzles are an interesting genre. In some ways, these appear in every game. It’s just only a few that make it the primary focus.

Casual & Exploration

Many of the games in this genre simply take the pressure off the player. Sure, there are moments of tension like a bike race or a beetle battle, but for the most part, these games emphasize exploring unique worlds, taking your time, and remembering to relax.

1. Wheel World: You are chosen by an ancient spirit to save the world from the back of a bike, but that doesn’t mean you can’t explore this gorgeously cel-shaded open world and kick back to the excellent soundtrack.
2. Descenders Next: The sequel to Descenders, snowboard and longboard down epic slopes, pull off tricks, and try to race your friends. But don’t forget to enjoy the ride.
3. Islands & Trains: This game is all about building small railway dioramas. There’s no rules. No timers. Just you and a sandbox of creativity. Take your time and enjoy.
4. Kabuto Park: Explore the park, find and capture bugs, and train them to win the Summer Beetle Battles Championship. Upgrade your bug-catching equipment to find stronger bugs.
5. Lushfoil Photogrophy Sim: Take a walk in a beautiful landscape. Explore hidden secrets, admire the views, and don’t forget to snap a few photos now and again. If you want.
6. Tall Trails: You are a small clay golem who wakes up on an island without a purpose. Run, jump, climb, and fire objects out of your boot backpack to launch yourself in the air to find your purpose.
7. Piece by Piece: After you inherit your family’s repair shop, you’ll need to rebuild items in casual 3D puzzles. This cozy woodland shop also needs decorations, so take time to paint, decorate, and furnish the shop too.
8. Mudborne: A casual nature management sim where you play as and manage gorgeous pixel art swamp full of frogs. But there’s more to this game than just frogs, unlock the paths between the waking and the dreaming world and save lost populations.
9. Out and About: Learn about real-life plants in this casual nature exploration game. Use your knowledge to master herbal remedies and recipes to restore your community after a devastating storm.
10. Despelote: Play as a young kid obsessed with soccer in 2001 Quito, Ecuador in this stylized slice-of-life sand box adventure. Kick a ball and see what happens.
11. Goodlands: The developers provide the perfect description: “A game about dinos digging up dinos.” Play as a dinosaur paleontologist and explore a desert landscape to find fossils that will hopefully “help restore a decrepit museum to its former glory.”
12. Camper Van: Make it Home: Just as the title says, visit various locations in a camper van and organize it to your hearts content. Make that camper van a home in this casual simulator.

There is some variation to this category. While they all have elements of exploration, some are more casual than others. Descenders Next can easily be an action-packed, fast-paced racing game, but you can also take the time to enjoy the landscape and cruise down the mountain with friends.

Conclusion

Hopefully there is something among this long list of demos that catches your attention. Steam Next Fest will only last until next Monday, March 3rd, so get to these demos while you can. Some of them might stick around afterwards, but I can’t be sure of which ones. I may update this list throughout the week as more demos catch my attention, so feel free to check back over the next week!

Wheel World

Q3 2025

Want It!

• Overview

• Steam
• indie games
• demo / trial versions
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Steam Games Festival / Steam Next Fest
• PC
• PS5
• XSX