Get an early look at your next favorite games.
Steam Next Fest is a seasonal celebration of PC game demos, and the autumn 2022 edition is here. With hundreds of demos on offer, you’ll want to set aside some time to dig through for the best.
At first glance, Undecember looks a lot like Diablo. At second and third glance, too. That might be why it’s the second-most popular demo of Steam Next Fest, but I’d like to believe that’s because of its cool free-form class system, which puts no restrictions on the gear or skills you can add to your build.
Flowstone Saga borrows from Tetris for an unexpectedly compelling RPG. Battles and puzzles both play out through falling block puzzles, with monsters that mess with the board to throw you off your rhythm.
First-person survival sim Forever Skies makes you the captain of an airship exploring a ruined Earth. You’ll need to gather resources while you navigate deadly storms and monsters to keep yourself afloat.
There’s no shortage of deckbuilding card games on Steam, but Wildfrost still stands out. Its unique battle system has cards automatically attack every few turns for a totally different kind of strategy. Plus, its art is hella cute, which is just as important.
In the charming as hell shop sim Potionomics, you’ll split your time between brewing potions and dealing with the whims of a quirky group of customers. To make it even better, you can even smooch your fellow shopkeeps!
Cassette Beasts is a very cool, very retro monster battler. Record any monster you find to a cassette, then play it back in battle to summon it. There’s even a Monster Rancher-esque fusion system to create new beasts. Fittingly for a cassette-themed game, the theme song also rules.
Strategy RPG Successor’s battles play out on hex grids like you’d expect from the genre, but mix things up with a real-time with pause system similar to Pillars of Eternity. Successor is worth checking out for its stunning diorama maps as much as its combat.
In the roguelite Against the Storm, you race to build a city before it’s destroyed by unceasing rain, then start over. It might hurt to watch your city wash away, but that means you’re constantly resetting to the most active part of founding a city, rather than settling into management drudgery.