Steam Next Fest provides a platform for developers to showcase upcoming or in-development games through demos. It offers a unique opportunity to discover hidden indie gems and witness the development process. This year, the author tried around 50 demos, providing insights into the vast world of PC gaming.
Two or three times a year Steam hosts a Next Fest , where every developer and their mom posts a demo of an upcoming or in-development game. During Next Fest you can almost always find some indie gem or discover that a mid-tier game is going to be way better than you'd ever expected. They're also a great snapshot into the development process —one that you used to only get by attending big expensive game shows like PAX or Gamescom or Tokyo Game Show.
Or you could do what I do: download dozens upon dozens of demos, fall into a kind of fugue state for an entire week, and emerge from the other end drained and exhausted and feeling like I've seen into the forbidden nth-dimensional futures of PC gaming for the coming years. This year I tried about 50 demos, setting my arbitrary limit at a combined 230GB and playing about ten per day Monday to Friday. Some I only played for a few minutes before deciding they were, in fact, very bad. Others ate an entire mornin
Steam Next Fest PC Gaming Demos Indie Games Development Process