Steam Nextfest October 2025

A new Steam Nextfest is on us and as per usual there is a landslide of games available. I feel landslide is an apt description of trolling through the demos. As per usual there is difficulty finding games even though they have added a whole selection of filters. You will have a spate of good games, maybe 3-6 games, then 30-40 either rubbish or games that we have seen before with a new skin. I will say compared to previous Nextfests there are actually a lot of very good looking games but I feel they are still hidden under a slew of AI slop, rehashed or reskinned games or just games that are not very good. I applaud people who create a game and more so to have the courage to put said game out there, but realistically having said that not all games are good unfortunately.

I do feel Steam has done something on the back end to make the games that are shown more curated, but there is still a lot of games on there that are just not good. This isn’t just rehashed AI slop but just games that are, as I said, just not very good. I am, I admit, quite a snob when it comes to graphics. I don’t mean that it has to be photorealistic or absolutely beautiful, but there is a standard I expect to be a minimum. I realise this is not a thing some people worry about, but pixel art graphics that look too outdated I cannot deal with for instance. Again, this is a personal choice. I love pixel art games (Stardew Valley, Core Keeper, Dave the Diver) but for some reason I cannot play pixel art games that are not in more of a modern style and resolution.

Another thing I feel the developers who put demos up would benefit from (or more specifically I would benefit from it), is gameplay immediately in the trailer so you can see what the gameplay is and therefore decide if it is a game for you or not. Or just gameplay in general, the number of games that have no gameplay astounds me. The gameplay should catch your eye and then more info can follow in the trailer. I found the games that caught my eye had gameplay first then more about the game including story trailers and a more in-depth details about the mechanics.

As a sidenote, anywhere I mentioned a game I put its title in bold so you can easily see the games name in case you are interested and wanted to look it up.

Looking through the games in the rolling banner, the For You section of the demo storefront and in the charts, I noticed a few things about the games they highlighted. There were many repeats of either classic games or recent games often reskinned or altered in some way. I know this seems obvious but there were quite a lot. I will say that many of these were the usual quick cash grab (ones based on Peak, Vampire Survivors and\or card\dice games) but there were actually a lot that seemed to move the genre or game design forward in interesting ways. There were also many shop simulators including a pet store and train sim one as well as a Bike repair one and a Parking Garage Simulator. These were all in the style of the original shop sim games with varying amounts of differences. As with the last few years there have been many vampire survivor likes. Many in 2.5D basically the same as Vampire Survivors but reskinned while other seemed to go the route of Megabonk and make it 3D often with really nice cartoony graphics. There also was a few more comedy style ones where there was a story behind the game, such as the one where you play a drunk con man who has pretended to be a wizard and must protect a village from hoards but you have no spells, so you throw rocks instead.

There were quite a few based on classic games from the 70s and 80s such as Asteroids in the form of games like Leaks in Space. In fact there were just a lot of space games in general from shooter, sides scrollers and first-person horror games. There were a lot of horror games but it is October after all. There were also a lot of card games similar to Balatro and dice games.

A lot of AI games, some of it slop but a few just to have art and voice acting. These ranged from a quick cash grab to someone who has an idea for a game that seemed interesting but has no art or voice acting skills so needs to have a helping hand to create the game. I think there is a conversation to be had here, and I am not sure how I feel about it if I am honest. Without the AI the game would not be made but it is AI so where the line in the sand for that is I think will be up to each person individually. If publishers were more likely to greenlight games like this with smaller budgets and smaller profit expectations, then AI would be a great placeholder as a proof of concept, but publishers are just not taking chances on games like these that really won’t need many sales to create a profit but at the same time will not generate the level of profit many publishers expect.

On a side note, I will mention one publisher I have had a lot of time for. Hooded Horse seem to be a publisher that publishes many of these smaller, well curated games that other publishers would not touch. They have a selection of published games that have exceptional reviews (Shadow Gambit, Son’s of Valhalla and Old World) they also have a few great games in early access (Manor Lords, Endless Ledgend 2 and 9Kings) as well as some very interesting upcoming games (Whiskerwood, Drill Keeper and a prequal to a classic game Might and Magic Olden Era). In fact, all throughout my time looking at the games on the Nextfest demo list their name kept coming up.

Another striking thing is how many of the demos are games that are being self-published. I was left wondering if this is a sign of things to come or just purely a sign that publishers are not willing to take risks? If publishers are not willing to publish games and more established studios see that they are able to self-publish with a little more effort and therefore have no publisher to split profits with then might they follow suit and publish their games themselves?

I also saw many hidden object games where you have to search for hidden cats or dragons and so on but in more in the style of a colouring in sheet where you need to colour in the hidden object. There were a lot of cat games I found in general. Surprisingly there were quite a few football manager style games including games where you actively play the games as well or football games like Rocket League or Rematch.

There were some papers please style games such as a game called 1998 The Toll keepers Story and one that has been around a bit in the news Quarantine Zone. A surprise was the amount of army strategy games including Strategod from MicroProse. I didn’t know they existed anymore and ended up down a rabbit hole on who started the company, who bought the company through to who owns it today. The more you know.

There were also the obligatory selections of Boomer shooters including Boomer Grandma which looked like more fun that those games have been for me personally.  Unsurprisingly there were lots of Chinese games and they too fall into the category of all the other games with much slop but some stand out games as well. We are still being inundated by idlers like banana a notable one I saw was TBH Task Bar Hero that looked like it would be fun if you are into that sort of game.

There was a swathe of games that were a sequel to another game that I really didn’t think would have enough sales to have a sequel. I am surprised by Cocnut Simulator 2 for example. I didn’t know the original Coconut Simulator existed and wouldn’t have thought that it required a second crack at the whip. Also being horror month, I saw a lot of Anomaly games with strangeness as their tagline.

Below is a list of games I saw with a cursory scan that looked interesting ang caught my eye while going through the carousel:

Click to Civ – This seemed an interesting casual clicker game that might be fun for a few hours depending on how much they add to it and the eventual depth of the systems.

Raidbound – a rogue like autobattler with gear progression. Again might be fun for a few hours but if they add a lot of customisation options or some RPG style mechanics it might hold for a bit longer. The graphics and feel is a bit like Battle Brothers.

Word cross – PVP crossword game. Looks interesting if you are into crosswords and PVP

Lilith’s Game – Asymetrical chess where it looks like you play chess against Lilith and the chess pieces are different or the board is set up in such a way that she has the advantage. It looks like she can have multiples of chess pieces. It is a game where the board is set up and to win the game you need to work yourself out of the situation you find yourself in similar to the Dulingo chess my son does.

Dogpile – a Tetris style game where you drop different dogs on top of each other and when the same type of dog hit each other they grow in size. I assume the idea is similar to Tetris in you try to keep the play area clear of dogs. There is a cat version as well with Cat Merge

Out of Shape - Multiplayer coop Hole in the Wall game. Quite simple but many of these simple to play hard to master co-op games become popular due to the lowish skill ceiling and random fun that is created.

Hacked the Streamer - FMV detective game where a streamer gets hacked and you as the streamer need to figure out who the hacker is. If you like detective games and FMV this seems a well-made well-acted FMV game.

Hide Zone - PVP hunter game in the vein of Dead by Daylight where the victims turn into Props

This Aint Even Poker Ya Joker! – Another Balator like idle clicker. Not sure how it works but looks interesting

Simon the Sorcerer Origins – return of the point and click game but a prequal to all the games. It is Simon the Sorcerer point and click. More of the same.

SpongeBob Titans of the Tide – a SpongeBob game including the one and only The Hoff. It’s another SpongeBob game so I think you know what to expect.

Balance Plane – a game where you use your plane to courier items around with a sort of Tetris style packing system, increase your plane size incrementally, try to smuggle things in, pick your piolets and so on.

Bubsy 4D – I was never into Busby but there is a new one that looks like a 3D platformer

Servant of the Lake – This is A Rusty Lake game. If you enjoy their games, I imagine you will enjoy this.

Restless Lands – 2D side scroller that looks quite tight. The graphics are the type of pixel graphics that I just cannot play (a bit like Regions of Ruin or Kingdom New Lands)

Bandit - 2D side scrolling shooter that reminds me of the type of game you would have got in an arcade machine in the 80s and 90s.

Nook Fall West Town – interesting looking narrative adventure that has a style of its own.

The Oversight Bureau – interesting voice driven narrative adventure where you are trapped in a detention centre that corrects your social thought to make them more inline with the social norms and you need to escape.

Jackal – A Hotline Miami style game that is very visceral

Revelation of Decay – Top-down zombie survival similar to Core Keeper or Crahlands

Forestrike – martial arts roguelike that has a mechanic similar to Sifu I guess where you go back in time and learn from your mistakes.

Mystic – a bit rough aound the edges of a survival game based on Eastern fantasies similar to Outworld and a Kenshi mix

江山北望 – There is no English translation for the title. This is a Chinese FMV game which has English subtitles. Any of these I have seen before have been well made and really good. This looks well-acted and they tend to have multiple endings and story divergences. I believe these games often go along with a TV series in China, so they benefit from the bigger budgets of said TV series.

Roadside Research – This is kind of a shop simulator game with the same style of gameplay but in it you play co-op as aliens where you are researching humans for invasion and you try not to get caught. I thought it was interesting in its differences.

Escape from Ever After – Paper Mario like game where you need to escape from Forever After Inc. The game looks very well made and very pretty

Dusk Punk – a Citizen Sleeper style dice game with a narrative story

Angst – Don’t Starve survival game mixed with the Long Dark aesthetics.

Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era – a Heroes of Might and Magic Prequal by Unfrozen and Ubisoft and published by Hooded Horse. It looks old but new at the same time. I think this will be a definite for Heroes of Might and Magic fans and has a very high production value.

Marvel Comic Invasion – Streets of Rage, Battle Toads or Double Dragon style game with Marvel characters

Whiskerwood – another Hooded Horse game in the vein of Timberborn with anthropomorphic Mice building towns. Very intricate with large production chains like Timberborn.

 

Demos I tried:

A Planet of Mine – This really is a great little game. You can already see the bare bones of something that will become a nice little cozy game. There is still much that is greyed out in the menus like all the different animals and planet types. I imagine it will be a game that is simple to play but difficult to master.

Statecraft – a game similar to Suzerin or King of the Castle where you are given a choice that has positive or negative effects on your country’s resources cush as military, economy or infamy. The other parties (run by AI in this game) vote as well and the highest voted options wins. You have options available t o you to swing that vote in your favour using money, energy and popularity. It is a simple game with choices that seemed overwhelmingly negative. In the game I played of the 20 od so choices I had only one had a slightly positive spin to it. There is also an election every 8 turns but I was unsure if I played the same party all the way through or if I played the ruling party.

Tavern Keeper – This is a very good tavern builder in the style of the old Theme Hospital or Theme Park games. This includes the humour and oddball characters. This is a no brainer for people who like those Theme style games.

Astrobotanica – It is a basic survival exploration game. There are puzzles which are the main point of the game that I could see. You are working with CO2 instead of Oxygen and a Stamina gauge. The game I think will be interesting to explore the areas and speaking to the prehistoric people. The lack of inventory id a real pain. I find this more than other survival games. It wouldn’t be such an issue if there weren’t that many things to pick up. You start with 5 slots only although your tools do not take up space in your inventory neither do quest items which is good. I explored most of the map and couldn’t find the quest item I needed.

Coaster crash course – a physics-based game where you build roller coasters on different maps. It was fun for a bit, and I can appreciate the idea but for me it wore thin quickly as I wasn’t really that bothered to clear the map or to go on and get a better grade.

Quill>Pistol – Never got on with this one. The instructions were a little too obscure and although the tutorial opponent was rubbish you still had to wait until they had their turn and that made learning a little slow. It told you what you needed to do but didn’t tell you how. The mechanics around the actual shot are all to increase the accuracy of the shot and increase your potential to do damage. For instance, it explained you needed to reload the pistol. This makes perfect sense. It said you need to load the gunpowder, then the wad then the pellet, then the rod and then the primer. So, I placed the items on the pistol and then there was nowhere I could see that actually set the reload into motion. It didn’t explain you didn’t need to just close the book. Another system is where you have to triangulate the persons height and distance from you to increase accuracy another good system, I think. So, you have to move your left and right hands (one in a c shape and the other with its thumb up), swopping between them as they move around randomly and I once again couldn’t figure out how to set it in motion to add this to my accuracy rating for the shot. It was filled with fun looking systems, but they need to be made clearer.

Cataria – isometric cartoony Rimworld. You have settlers and different things to build. I would say it needs work. There are some basic quality of life systems that these days are just expected. You have to constantly and actively tell all the settlers what to do. Most games like this you have a jobs list and can assign particular villagers to particular jobs. Now this is, as with many of these demos, still early in production and there does seem to be quite a few rough edges to the game so I imagine they will add many things especially if they continue to take on board what anyone who plays the game says.

Norse Oath of Blood – This looks like it could be quite interesting. There is village building, missions, turn based combat with individual character progression with some RPG elements. The graphics are really good as it is an UE game. I imagine there will be a lot of things to this game when it releases in full.

Tears of Metal – This will be a really good rogue like game with many upgrades and weapons and charms and so on. I think this will rival the Hades games for some people as it is very visceral and the attacks are heavy and chunky. I feel this is one to watch.

The Last Caretaker – This is exactly what I thought it was going to be. The game is all about a robot on a station trying to get everything to work again. There are crafting items and cables that need linking and tools and everything you would expect from a game like this. It will be a game I will wait to play at full release rather than play a lot of the demo as I know I will enjoy it. It surprised me as I though it was set in space or somewhere else but instead you appear to be in the sea and on a boat or station of some kind. Like I said I will be playing this at launch so I didn’t want to be too spoiled.

14: Overmind – This is basically Breathage or Subnautica in space. It is very interesting, and I think once you learn the mechanics and how the systems work it will be a good game. For a work in progress it is very good. How much longevity there is depends on how many new systems, mechanics and interesting vehicles and so on they add.

Pokitaire – Poker solitaire hybrid in the style of Balatro. You clear the solitaire game by playing poker hands. Seems more interesting and different than the other versions of Balatro-likes that I saw. It has interesting combos and new poker hands to find and learn. The decks are not always your standard 52 card deck of cards. Stackflow was another game like Balatro but with Tetris instead of poker or card games.

 

Below is a list of games that were already on my Wishlist that I hadn’t mentioned before:

Tides of Tomorrow – I tried this demo a while ago. Looks interesting with a good story with narrative arcs but seemed a little rough.

Anno Pax Romana - Again I tried this demo a while ago and seems like more Anno but they have made a multitude of changes to quality of life additions even from Anno 1800. The game looks really pretty as well. There will be a semblance of a story to drive you along, but I will wait to see if Ubisoft does and Ubisoft and tries to monetise the hell out of the game. I wont be holding my breath though.

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