Subsequent Fest is again! The biannual Steam occasion that celebrates demos for a whole lot of forthcoming video games begins immediately, October 13, and runs till 1 p.m. ET on October 20. However with 3,276 demos to select from, it’s an awesome beast. Worry not, for we—just like the courageous knights we’re—are right here to focus on a number of the finest we’ve discovered throughout a breadth of genres, from indie to AAA.
I like to consider Subsequent Fest because the video games business’s demonstration that genres don’t imply something any extra, because the hundreds of demos are categorized by a mix of lies and jazz, and the phrases “point-and-click” are taken to imply “video games that characteristic pointy objects and clicking sounds.” It could make on the lookout for explicit forms of video games an astonishing headache. So as a substitute, push all such intentions apart: Subsequent Fest is finest loved by simply scrolling by into the deepest recesses and putting in something that catches your eye. Neglect in regards to the kinds of video games you already like; as a substitute plunge in deep and experiment. And to avoid wasting your scroll wheel, we’ve picked out a number of video games that might be your new massive obsession.
After all this by no means definitive! There shall be a whole lot of demos value taking part in, and should you’ve found something you’d advocate your self, then we encourage you to take action within the feedback.
Tingus Goose
Developer: SweatyChair
Launch date: This fall 2025
Demo hyperlink
Usually with these roundups I like to start out with a widely known title so everybody feels comfy, secure, and acquainted, earlier than I then begin including the super-weird delights. However no such easing ourselves into the deep finish immediately, as a result of there is no such thing as a extra necessary demo to let you know about than Tingus Goose. I…phrases can not suffice.
It is a clicker within the vein of Cookie Clicker, besides you’re…nicely, hear, you’re clicking on the bizarre little baby-creatures known as Tingus that fly out of the beak of a goose. A goose that’s rising out of the stomach of a woman mendacity on a mattress. As you water your goose (you heard me) its neck grows longer, and it reaches for the loving kiss of one other goose hanging down from the sky above. They need to mate, and it’s your job to have them meet. However you want cash to water a goose, and that’s gained by, um, having the infants roll over protuberances that develop sideways out of the goose’s neck. That, as you’d count on, earns money. And don’t fear, you’ll be able to click on on the infants, too, to get more cash, however don’t click on too typically or they pop.
That is all a wonderful piece of batshit loopy animation and gibberish sport design, and I like each second of it.
PowerWash Simulator 2
Developer: FuturLab
Launch date: 23 Oct, 2025
Demo hyperlink
See, in different years this is able to have been my extra welcoming first entry. We’re all trying ahead to PowerWash Simulator 2, proper? And now we lastly get to play it! Hooray!
And sure, it’s after all completely marvelous. It’s extra PowerWash Simulator, however barely prettier and with much less clunky controls. I’m having to pressure myself to cease taking part in to put in writing this, and play the remainder of the demos, and it’s proving difficult, and that’s what PW at all times did finest: take over your complete life with its demonic pressure-washing powers.
Slots And Daggers
Developer: Friedemann
Launch date: October 24, 2025
Demo hyperlink
Oh my goodness that is the most effective I need to play it endlessly. This being Slots And Daggers, a post-Balatro roguelite slot machine sport that purifies the mechanics to sweetest perfection. You start by selecting the icons that may seem on the slots (beginning with cash, sword assaults and defend) after which cease every dial to struggle a monster. In case you win, cash earned will be spent on new icons (maybe a bow assault, or an improve to your defend), in addition to on power-ups that enhance your assaults, protection, and approach. You and the enemy have defend and well being meters, with some assaults in a position to do true harm, others protected by your defenses. And, after all, the second you lose it’s again to the beginning. Besides you additionally win poker chips as you play, and these will be spent on “unlawful” hacks to the slot machine that may completely enhance issues.
It’s all there, proper? All of the substances of an awesome roguelite, within the neatest doable approach. And I can guarantee you that it’s outstandingly moreish.
Mosaic of the Unusual
Developer: Mark Ffrench
Launch date: 7 Nov, 2025
Demo hyperlink
Mark Ffrench makes a really particular style of sport. It’s Fill-a-Pix puzzles writ massive, the logic puzzle video games that often fill a small grid in your cellphone now taking over wall-size friezes. Proverbs was my favourite of his, a large rendering of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s portray, Netherlandish Proverbs, became a puzzle. And that may sound pretentious, however rattling it was fantastic. Later got here 2024: Mosaic Retrospective, an unbelievable collage of occasions of the earlier yr, and subsequent comes Mosaic of the Unusual, the follow-up to a sport I now notice I fully missed, Mosaic of the Pharaohs. (I do know what I’m doing after I ought to be working tomorrow…) Extremely, this combines the puzzle idea with a point-and-click journey, and my thoughts’s made up.
It’s laborious to know find out how to persuade a skeptic to offer a sport like this a strive, however they’re blissfully absorbing and I actually can not advocate them sufficient.
Painkiller
Developer: Anshar Studios
Launch date: 21 Oct, 2025
Demo hyperlink
I’d by some means fully missed that Painkiller was coming again. As 3D Realms trawls its archives, 2004’s Painkiller is the newest recognizable title to get a complete overhaul. A decade off has accomplished it some good, and its return provides it recent new central characters, and it’s playable alone or in 3-player co-op. It strikes extraordinarily shortly, which is my main want from any 3D Realms shooter, and the AI bots appear to do an honest sufficient job within the demo. It’s additionally gloriously gory and bursting with Quake 3 vibes.
Heroes of May and Magic: Olden Period
Developer: Unfrozen
Launch date: 2026
Demo hyperlink
Arms up, who’s sufficiently old to recollect the Heroes of May & Magic video games? No, it’s OK, don’t pressure your arm. And let’s not even ask in regards to the OG May & Magic followers, because the breath of the query would possibly trigger them to break down into mud. The RPG sequence goes again so far as 1986 extremely, with its turn-based technique spin-off Heroes of May & Magic beginning in 1995. Extremely regarded turn-based technique video games proper up till they weren’t, the sequence noticed diminishing returns starting with HOMM 5 and 2015’s May & Magic Heroes VII polished the entire franchise off for a decade.
Nicely, it’s again, and its newest entry is coming from Iratus developer Unfrozen. Apparently it has the nice sense to not meddle with a beloved formulation, letting you construct your mythological armies and develop a city, with its emphasis squarely on recreating everybody’s joyful reminiscences of HOMM 3. And look, I may deceive you and faux I understood this demo, however turn-based technique is a style I’ve by no means gotten my head round. I’m simply excited for all of the May & Magic followers I’ve identified and liked that it’s again.
Kingdom of Evening
Developer: Buddies of Security
Launch date: This fall 2025
Demo hyperlink
I put in this one on a whole whim, and I’m very glad I did. It’s an RPG by the use of a point-and-click journey, set in Nineteen Eighties Arizona with some heavy Stranger Issues vibes. You play a teenage child at highschool who finds himself embroiled in a weird journey of invading demons and magical powers. The demo instantly reveals how the traits you choose have an effect on the way you play, with a alternative between brains and brawn opening up totally different dialog choices and methods to deal with faculty encounters. It comes with an intricate spell system, real-time fight, and plenty of pretty isometric pixel graphics. And I’m actually stepping into it. This was first introduced six years in the past, however is outwardly arriving this yr, full with an choice to play the entire journey in co-op.
Servant of the Lake
Developer: Rusty Lake
Launch date: 2026
Demo hyperlink
The unbelievable Rusty Lake sequence simply celebrated its tenth anniversary with a usually macabre birthday sport, however now’s again with an upcoming full entry within the long-running Lynchian sequence. Servant of the Lake has the participant arrive to the Vanderboom home by horse and cart, there to be a servant to the household for a single weekend. Nonetheless, long-term followers will notice this places us within the period of the primary era of the Vanderbooms, and thus within the presence of Aldous Vanderboom, the person who turns into the sequence peculiar antagonist, Mr. Crow. And, truthfully, you personal it to your self to play each Rusty Lake sport so as, constructing as much as subsequent yr’s launch of this one.
Reanimal
Developer: Tarsier Studios
Launch date: TBA
Demo hyperlink
Reanimal is after all what Tarsier Studios is making as a substitute of Little Nightmares 3. It’s a complete new undertaking from the workforce and, nonetheless a yr on from its announcement, it doesn’t but have a launch date. However not less than we are able to play a few of it now! You play as a sack-headed boy, who begins the sport steering a ship to tug a mask-wearing lady from the ocean, earlier than lastly reaching dry land and starting the journey of their try to flee their hellish residence. It’s all extraordinarily atmospheric, however very gradual to get going for a demo. Nonetheless, persist and also you’ll expertise this horror-themed journey for an honest whereas.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion
Developer: Tribute Video games
Launch date: 2025
Demo hyperlink
I’m delighted to report that Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a whole delight. Tribute Video games follows up TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge with one other old-school side-scrolling beat ’em up, this time with a broad forged of Marvel heroes to biff with. You choose two at a time (Spider-Man and She Hulk make for an awesome pairing), then alternate between the 2 of them as you arrange combos and Streets of Rage your approach down these pixel-perfect streets. In actual fact, it’s so Streets of Rage that you just even eat meals you discover by smashing rubbish cans, identical to actual superheroes do.
It’s so colourful and punchy (in each sense) that it feels prefer it might be a traditional arcade cupboard hit from the ’80s, rejuvenated for contemporary machines.
