Steam Next Fest 2026 Pt 1
When checking through the list of games there were a lot of horror games, visual novels, shop simulators, anime games, side scrollers, card battlers, Co op ‘friend slop’ type games, and chill games. It was also the first time I have heard the phrase ‘multiplayer social deduction game’ and there were a lot of social deduction games. There were also a large amount of games with unique art styles that really didn’t appeal to me. In general, there were just a huge amount of games to choose from, the list just didn’t end.
I collated a selection of games that I thought were worth a try. This is Part one of the games I tried.
1348 Ex Voto: Brave the harsh realities of the Italian late medieval period through the eyes of a courageous noble whose life is about to change fundamentally. Follow Aeta (Alby Baldwin), a young knight errant, on a brutal journey through Italy to find and save her closest one, Bianca (Jennifer English).
This game is coming out on the 12th March this year. It is interesting but has a lot of rough edges. The combat itself is fluid, but many of the animations are still very wooden and stiff. Hair and clothing physics are a little off putting but they are generally the most difficult to get right. It features a swing, dodge, block and stagger combat system. There is also a perfect strike system where you strike the next blow as the first blow hits and it seems this does more to the enemy’s stagger metre. The voice acting is good with the two lead characters (as expected with Jennifer English) but as the demo was short and to the point, it is hard to tell if all the other voice acting was of the same level. The story in the demo is just through the prologue stage so it really just getting started. It seems the type of game that people will enjoy if they can get past the jank of the animations, that are fine just can be distracting when Bianca’s hair goes through her neck, and I imagine the story will be engaging. Jenifer English is always fantastic as a voive actor but based on the demo I am not sure how much she is in it nevertheless Alby Baldwin was doing a very good job as the lead character.
Wild West Pioneers: Are you tired of the crowded east coast cities? Grab your family and move to the West where there is free land for everybody and claim your future. With fertile soil and abundant resources, you’ll find more than adventure and freedom. This is your chance to be a driving force of the American dream.
This is for all intents and purposes Anno in the Wild West. There are character dialogs, distinct characters with their own individual personalities and the usual base building game buildings and resources to manage. There is an overworld somewhat like Anno and the game requires you to find points of interest on the world map using your scouts. Unfortunately there were some bugs where the tutorial pop ups did not disappear and blocked the screen and after a short amount of time I had a black screen and the game froze. I feel I got a feel for the game in that short time as I have played similar games before. The game has a good feel to it and I think it could become something special if you like the Anno series. It comes to early access this year no date as yet although there is a join the playtest button steam.
GRIMPS: There aren’t any normal weapons, but you can shoot a shark like a gun, hurl stools, and rip your fluffy foes to shreds! Is this the best way to destroy stuffed animals? Probably not. Is it awesome? Hell yeah!
This is exactly as you would think it is from looking at it. It is like High on Life with an annoying pigeon character following you around and unusual guns to fight with. There are enemy arenas with multiple enemies dropping in through portals. You have health and armour to worry about, and ammo drops from most enemies and these are also scattered around the arenas. There are 2 guns I tried a slow gun that you start with and the machine gun that speeds up as it goes along. I didn’t like the shooting as I felt that it didn’t shoot where I was aiming, but rather a little down and to the right. When I adjusted that it seemed to go better for me but it was still off putting.
Starship Crafter: Take on the role of a starship mechanic and repay the immense debt your father left behind. Upgrade your workshop, craft components, build starships, complete contracts, follow unfolding events through the in-game newspaper, and most importantly, repay the debt before the deadline
This game is a Car Mechanic kind of game but in space. You breakdown and repair ships, buy new new recipes to learn, Buy resources on the marketplace and so on. The game was fun, but the lack of universal storage just adds busywork instead of doing things that would be a bit more fun. You owe a debt to some pirates through your father and need to pay it off. I do think it could be fine, but you need to be aware of that it is what it says on the tin.
War for Bryndor: A fast-paced strategy game where cards offer you strategy and dice determine your fate! Conquer provinces in thrilling battles in an attempt to unite the land. Manage your resources and outmaneuver opponents in quick matches filled with tactical decisions and shifting frontlines. With dynamic maps and a blend of luck and strategy, you won't want to stop. Can you claim ultimate victory?
This looks to be a fun little card battler. I didn’t play enough as I feel I had the basic understanding and if I had more time and less demos to try I would have played more. I liked the art style and if I had more time to work through the cards I think it would be a good game.
House and Hand: Building thriving island cities in this addictive match-3 deck-building roguelike! Place forests, mountains, cities, and more on islands using cards from your deck. Match 3 identical features to combine them into a bigger, better features that scores you points.
House and Hand is a match-3 deck building city scape roguelike. You have card with different tiles you can place (including fields, trees, mountains, robbers and so on) that when three or more are in a row, create a new upgraded tile (pastures for fields, towns for trees, mines for mountains and the robbers upgrade). The round ends when you run out of cards in your deck which moves you onto the next island or if you have no spaces left on your island to place cards then the run ends. Each island is purposefully quite small, but they differ in size and when you get to choose the next island to go for, they have bonuses and hinderances attached to them as well as different tile sizes (4X4, 5X5,6X4 and so on.) At the end of the round if you win you are scored on that island and receive money which you use to either add buffs (you can have a few that persist through the islands on that particular run) or to purchase new cards to add to your deck.
It was a fun little game. Hopefully for the full release they have numerous cards and combinations to keep it interesting. This game reminds me somewhat of Dorfromantik in its mechanics and although I loved that game, I found it got repetitive after a while and I don’t think this game will be any different for me. If you like match-3 games and enjoy finding strategies to work your way through then this will be a great game. The sprites are well done, and the game runs smoothly.
Mirealle: A world has split into thousands of floating islands. A forgotten history is hidden in ruins. Mirealle is a touching puzzle adventure set in a cozy universe. It is about the search for hope where a lost part of the world… and of oneself… are hidden in every detail.
Mirealle is a cute little puzzle game. My daughter would probably enjoy the game as the graphics are charming. The puzzles were not difficult on the 3 maps I played. You start on your home island and your pet gets ill. You decide to travel to another island to seek help. On the island you discover a stone that takes you across to further islands. There are sections on the maps that show you past memories that add to the story. As you walk around the island, while rotating them 90 degrees at a time, you get little pop-up speech bubbles that give you context as to why these islands are uninhabited. These speech bubbles change their perspective to keep their facing in order for you to read them which was a nice touch. There have been similar games but this game should stand on it’s own.
Imago Season: A true narrative roleplaying experience. Explore an alien city inhabited by human-insect hybrids. Roll dice, join a revolution, become a mutant yourself. The choices are yours, but so are the consequences.
This was a good narrative game. The characters were interesting and the world was unique. Humans metamorphosing into bugs via a choice system was interesting. The history of the world is something I would be interested in learning more about including the robots that seem to have taken over the world as their leaders.
You start in the world being told a story about what you are felling and where you make choices that direct said story to some small amount. There is much about this game that reminds me of the way Disco Elysium tells its story. There are dice rolls that are affected by your skill set and failure in these rolls does not always mean failure in the game, but rather a different path through the story. As in Disco Elysium there are dice rolls that can be repeated after a skill increase and ones that cannot. I feel the demo was rigged to ensure you passed certain tests in order for the demo to progress. I enjoyed the game, but I am not sure if I would play it when it came out purely down to the number of releases that come out but I feel they have something interesting here that will tickle many people’s fancy. The demo is worth your time if you find it at all interesting.
Commie Block: Survive as the newly appointed manager in an expanding communistic regime where our purpose is to produce more and more resources for the glory of motherland! Manage the workforce & optimize output of buildings to survive against unrealistic demands as long as possible in our own commie block
I think there is a gem of a game here, but the tutorial is minimal and explains what you would already know if you have played any of these games before. There is little information on the buildings you put down. The apartments don’t add workers but add personal storage which I have no idea what it even does. I repeatedly failed my quotas because I just couldn’t get enough resources out of the buildings quick enough. I tried many buildings with few workers and few buildings full of workers. In the end the game became frustrating. I played the tutorial and was trying to figure out how to get more workers and other than research and random rewards for meeting quotas, there wasn’t a hard and fast way to do so. I feel I missed something important in the tutorial but even a second run through of the tutorial did not remove any confusion. Good idea but it needs more direct explanation or a deeper tooltip for the buildings to explain to stupid how they work.
Cursed Blood: Cursed Blood is a brutal 1-4 player co-op melee roguelike. Play as vengeful Samurai Apes fuelled by rage, unleashing a whirlwind of lightning-fast combat. Spill blood, sever limbs, and claim your vengeance!
I really enjoyed this demo. It is a twin stick melee roguelike. It is visceral and bloody fast-moving melee combat with powerups and curses to dictate how you play. I played singleplayer but it is up to 4 player co-op. I only played 2 of the characters and they did not deem to play that different. The second character had kunai but I never figured out how to use them. You also pick up guns with limited ammo along the way that onced empty of bullets you can throw. There are multiple curses along the way that you can collect at alters that give you a bonus in return for the curse. Overall this was a well presented, well thought out well made game. I just wish I didn’t suck at twin stick shooters.