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Steam Next Fest Returns With Thousands of Playable Demos

The festival’s huge and still-growing slate is creating a discovery bottleneck for players and press due to limits on attention.

Overview

  • PC Gamer counted 4,347 demos on the current slate and warned the total will rise during the week, creating an overwhelming volume of playable previews.
  • PC Gamer calculated that trying each demo for 30 minutes would take about 2,173.5 hours, or roughly 90.6 days, highlighting the practical impossibility of sampling everything.
  • Destructoid published a curated seven-demo shortlist to guide players and included titles such as EMPULSE, Mistfall Hunter, Mexican Ninja, Pixel Washer, over the hill, Washington Prime, and Dearbnb.
  • Coverage singled out EMPULSE as a Titanfall-style movement shooter from 1047 Games and noted Mistfall Hunter as an extraction-looter that is slated to launch on July 29.
  • Steam Next Fest is a week-long, thrice-yearly showcase that helps small and mid-size developers find visibility, but the rapid growth of Steam’s catalog is making curation essential for discovery.