What are the Steam Next Fest best demos? The weather’s turned chill, the nights are drawing in, and Valve has given us the best excuse to cozy up in front of the PC. Steam Next Fest has never been more popular, and there are far too many excellent demos than can reasonably fit into a single list. That’s where yours truly comes in.
I’ve combed through Steam Next Fest to bring you the best demos to play right now, so you can pack out your wishlist just in time for the holiday Steam sale. While the PCGamesN hive mind has been digging into Delta Force and Supervive with abandon, my top picks aren’t necessarily the games topping the Steam Next Fest charts. These hidden gems constitute some of the best upcoming PC games across multiple genres, so you should find plenty on this list that takes your fancy.
Here are the best demos in Steam Next Fest October 2024:
- Keep Driving
- Juice
- Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
- Is this Game Trying to Kill Me?
- Windblown
- The Axis Unseen
- StarVaders
- Building Relationships
- Spilled!
- Heartworm
Keep Driving
Pacific Drive has already proven that cars and roguelike games can be a match made in heaven, and Keep Driving is no exception. Taking its cue from Oregon Trail and FTL, this management RPG captures the adolescent-fuelled nostalgia of hopping in a beat-up sedan with little more than your driver’s license and your favorite videogame to spend a weekend at a friend’s house. I plan my route on a fold-up map, then take to the open road against a backdrop of pixel-perfect rolling hills and a carefree indie rock soundtrack.
Of course, no road trip is without its delays. I’m routinely brought up short in turn-based battles against tractors, sheep, and potholes. I stave off fatigue and headaches with supplies from gas station convenience stores and stash endless chocolate bars in the glovebox to sate my hunger. A pair of hitchhikers offer assistance during these fraught road battles, though one fills my back seat with trash while the other hogs my trunk’s inventory space with his guitar. Eventually, they devolve into an argument that saps the last of my energy and runs me off the road, but failure can’t wipe the smile off my face. Make no mistake, Keep Driving is the diamond of Steam Next Fest.
Juice
Billed as a “first-person slaughterer,” Juice is an explosion of illustrated gore and eldritch tentacles set over a grainy grayscale filter. This nine-minute demo is segmented into bite-sized chunks of mindless carnage. I tear my way through train carriages and residential neighborhoods, CRT TV static and low-frequency tones mingling with the screams of my hapless cardboard cutout victims, coalescing into a claustrophobic dread.
Juice’s amalgamation of millennial grunge and the violent liberation of old-school, ultraviolent hack-and-slash games is a heady concoction, but it’s the demo’s abrupt cut to a lone survivor that earns it a place on our Steam Next Fest shortlist. Holed up in a crummy apartment and surrounded by takeout trash, all I have for company is the drone of the radio and the wail of sirens as the apocalypse unfolds outside my window.
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
2022’s Citizen Sleeper captivated TTRPG lovers with its dice-driven cyberpunk universe, and we jumped at the chance for a second helping. The Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector demo casts me as a Sleeper on the run – a human mind trapped in an artificial body, desperate to escape the capitalist clutches of corporate and criminal overlords alike. To make matters worse, a janky reboot has left me with a nasty bout of amnesia, rendering my relationship with my fellow escapee strained and opaque.
It’s not all doom and gloom. Our rickety rig has delivered us to a spaceport (mostly) intact, kicking off Citizen Sleeper’s cycle of actions and dice rolls. Its reams of text and multiple-choice decisions will have CRPG fans slavering at the chops. Before long, I’m on a questionable errand to an abandoned space station – and while my choice of class gives me the edge when it comes to some tricky dice rolls, I’ve got to rely on my crew’s skills if I want to beat the odds and avoid a crisis. If you’re new to Citizen Sleeper, this demo is the perfect introduction to the cyberpunk game’s universe ahead of its release next year.
Is this Game Trying to Kill Me?
Developer Stately Snail follows in the genre-bending footsteps of Daniel Mullins’ Inscryption in a demo that’s part horror game, part escape room. I find myself in a cross between a quaint log cabin and a claustrophobic dungeon with only a skeleton for company. A menagerie of interactable objects make up the cabin’s contents, but I don’t get to ponder over them for long. The lovechild of the Babadook and Freddy Krueger appears at the window and tells me he’s made a special game just for me.
No, it’s not this one. It’s actually Castle Serpentshtain, its menu glaring at me from the boxy monitor in the middle of the room. As I cautiously make my way through this game-within-a-game’s medieval dungeon, I pull a level and – surprise! – a clue materializes as a bloody smear on the cabin wall. What follows is a vacillation between dual realities, solving puzzles in tandem until I finally unscramble the cabin door and step through it. Is this Game Trying to Kill Me? Absolutely – and I have a feeling I’m going to love every second of it.
Windblown
Dead Cells developer Motion Twin makes a triumphant return to the roguelike space with Windblown, and we couldn’t be happier to finally take it for a spin at Steam Next Fest. Dead Cells already demanded quick reflexes, but Motion Twin’s venture into the 3D space kicks it up a notch. As a punkish guinea pig, I dash across a series of floating platforms at breakneck pace and charge headlong into combat against a spherical robot knight.
After a hack-and-slash battle that flirts with bullet hell precision, the RNG gods smile upon me and I’m gifted a lifesteal passive that pulls me from the brink of death. A handful of mistimed dodges later transports me to a ramshackle hub. This Steam Next Fest demo shows how Windblown fares as a single-player game, but we know from our Windblown preview at GDC that it really comes to life in multiplayer. Nevertheless, it’s the perfect opportunity to take Windblown for a spin ahead of its early access release next week. This is one the roguelike fiends won’t want to miss.
The Axis Unseen
Ex-Bethesda developer Nate Purkeypile has struck out on his own for a solo project that brings heavy metal horror to the hunting game genre. Equal parts tense and relaxing, The Axis Unseen has me painstakingly managing my heart rate, marking the wind direction with a tatty green flag, and clutching a meager quiver of arrows close in a cryptid-infested open world. In one hunt, a deluge has me slogging through mud, every footstep a noisy wet schlop that’s music to the ears of any skinwalkers in the vicinity; in another, a sharp-nosed werewolf stalks my footprints through a sunlit valley.
This physics-based realism is juxtaposed against The Axis Unseen’s esoteric magic and mysticism. I harness spirit arrows to gain an overhead view of the landscape, and summon a rock wall from thin air to force space between myself and an oncoming predator. However, it’s the world itself that has me captivated, filled with hand-placed points of interest that speak to an ancient, fantastical history. The lazy twang of electric guitars crescendos into a heavy metal score as Bigfoot crests the hill and the hunter becomes the hunted. This is a must-play for amateur cryptozoologists and hunting game fans alike.
Building Relationships
Of course, Steam Next Fest isn’t just about getting to trial the latest and greatest games for free. It’s also a golden opportunity to step outside your comfort zone and take a real oddball for a spin. That’s Building Relationships in a nutshell. This farcical dating sim will have you rolling (literally) as a quaint red-roofed house on the lookout for love.
My search for the perfect bachelor pad takes me across Happy Island’s idyllic, low-poly landscape, each dash and jump punctuated with an inexplicable, joyous “HONK!”. I exchange locker room talk with a horny tent and painstakingly piece together a picnic of flat-pack furniture, then play a Stardew-style minigame to fish lorries out of the sea. Yes, it’s just as weird as it sounds. However, much like Strange Scaffold’s Airport Dog Game, it’s delivered with such earnest enthusiasm that it’s impossible not to lean into its absurdity. This Steam Next Fest demo’s meet-cute with a coquettish windmill will shake you to your foundations.
StarVaders
An amalgamation of Into the Breach, Slay the Spire, and Space Invaders, StarVaders is a turn-based deckbuilder that casts a wide net. This stylish strategy game takes place during an alien invasion, and Earth’s last line of defense is a begoggled pilot and her trusty mech. I navigate a grid-based board and deploy explosive card combos to stop these uninvited guests in their tracks. Every invader that slips past unscathed ticks up my doom meter, bringing our beloved blue planet one step closer to total destruction.
It’s tough to stand out from the crowd of slick card games these days, but StarVaders has an ace or two up its sleeve. My mech can withstand just about anything coming my way; instead, taking damage floods my deck with junk cards. However, it’s the overheat mechanic that really has me hooked. Ever had the perfect combo in Slay the Spire that’s just one action point short? In StarVaders, you can make that dream a reality – but it will burn through that extra card in the process. The ability to push beyond the limits of what a card battler typically allows is a unique freedom, but I quickly discover that its cost adds up. Thankfully, there is a rewind button to save myself from my own worst misplays.
Spilled!
Spilled! joins Terra Nil and Preserve in the growing niche of “eco-friendly” relaxing games, and its short, simple premise makes it the perfect way to spend a lunch break. I take to its compact canals as a small but mighty boat outfitted to clean up oil spills and corral plastic waste. This top-down ecological restoration is straightforward but deeply satisfying, as the murky waters of each area are restored to their former crystalline glory, revealing shoals of fish, turtles, and coral reefs.
Solo developer Lente brings their conservationist vision to life with pastel pixel art and intricate animations, from the gentle wave of grass verges to the clownfish darting below the water’s surface. Recycling plants reward my efforts with coins to upgrade the boat’s speed, storage, and collection range, but its slow pace is a welcome change from the ‘hardcore’ demos on this list.
Heartworm
As well-received as Bloober’s Silent Hill 2 remake may be, nothing quite beats the classic survival horror experience. Fixed camera angles; tank controls; obtuse puzzles – Heartworm delivers it all in a neat PS1-era package. It even throws in a Fatal Frame-style camera for good measure, bringing a new dimension to exploration and combat. To top it off, this demo comes complete with a warning: I will need a pen and paper on standby. Perfect.
After spending too much time on message boards, our Croftian protagonist takes a trip to “the other side.” Where exactly am I? That remains to be seen, not least because most of it is hidden behind locked doors. I furiously snap photographs to disperse walking analog snow on a quiet residential street, and find refuge in a safe room that’s clearly meant to evoke the ornate furnishing of Resident Evil’s Spencer Mansion. Heartworm is a hug in a mug… if the mug were a psychological hellscape and the hug was deadly human-shaped TV static. Close enough!
Now that you’re armed with our list of the top demos in Steam Next Fest October 2024, check out some of the best PC games of all time to really stretch your wishlist to the max. We’ve also got a Steam Next Fest June 2024 round-up with more recommendations of recent releases that cut their teeth on this popular demo fest.