It’s been a busy few months for video games. If you’re the kind of person who likes to keep up with new releases, you’re probably still working through a backlog that you could never hope to finish by the end of 2025. But if you can manage to put down Hades 2 or Battlefield 6, there are a whole lot of great demos available for you to try right now.
Steam Next Fest is here and it runs until Oct. 20. During that stretch, you’ll be able to find tons of demos for upcoming PC games on Steam. That includes peeks at anticipated upcoming titles like Ball X Pit and indie oddities you’ve never heard of. (My favorite demo from a recent Next Fest was for a Silent Hill-inspired soccer game called Fear Fa 98.) It’s a great way to refresh your Steam wishlist and put some promising games on your radar. So, what should you check out? Here are some suggestions to get you started, but there’s plenty more where that comes from.
Goodnight Universe
If you don’t know about Goodnight Universe already, you will soon. The Tribeca Fest winner launching on Nov. 11 is the next game from the team behind Before Your Eyes. That game used your web camera to create an unforgettable experience controlled entirely through eye tracking. Goodnight Universe is an evolution of that idea, putting players in control of an infant with psychic powers. So long as you have a working camera, the Steam Next Fest demo will give you a taste of how you can control the world by just looking around. It’s an especially well-timed demo considering that Goodnight Universe bears a resemblance to Nintendo’s recent Close To You short film. (Well, before all the Pikmin got added in.) There are a lot of games to try during Next Fest, but I promise that nothing else will be like this.
Sleep Awake
We’re currently in the middle of the Halloween season, and you’ve got plenty of horror games to try during Next Fest if you’re looking for a good scare. Chief among those is Sleep Awake, a cryptic new project from publisher Blumhouse Games. It takes place in a creepy world where people are mysteriously disappearing in their sleep. You play as a character trying to force themselves to stay awake at all times in a first-person horror game that’s heavy on surreal and nightmarish imagery that will make you feel the sleep deprivation of it all. You can also get a taste of its unsettling sound design brought to you by Nine Inch Nails’ Robin Finck.
Ambrosia Sky
Ever since it got its first press demo at Summer Game Fest, I’ve been hearing nothing but praise for Ambrosia Sky. After finally trying its Steam Next Fest demo, I understand why. The debut game from Soft Rains is basically a mix between Metroid Prime and Super Mario Sunshine. You’re an interstellar cleaner — literally — who is sent out to destroyed spaceships that have been taken over by an alien fungus. Your job is to clean those crisis zones with your sci-fi powerwasher. As you can imagine, that leads to some satisfying gameplay that has you blasting away alien growth in eerie spaceships. The demo is a strong teaser, showcasing Ambrosia Sky’s great sense of atmosphere, stylish UI, and even a bit of zero-G movement. Don’t miss out on this one; it’s bound to be the talk of Steam Next Fest.
Lumines Arise
If you’ve yet to try the demo for Lumines Arise, now is the perfect time to get on that before the music game’s Nov. 11 release date. The PSP-era revival puts a hypnotic spin on the cult puzzle classic courtesy of Enhance, the studio behind Tetris Effect. You don’t need me to tell you that, though; it’ll be immediately apparent when you try the trippy demo. You’ll be able to refamiliarize yourself with Lumines’ two-color block-matching format as well as marvel at a few of its psychedelic levels. I’ve been playing a demo build myself over the last few days, and it has completely vacuumed up my free time. I can’t even begin to imagine what it will feel like in VR when it launches on PS5 with PlayStation VR2 support, but I would drop everything and dive in right this second if I could.
Reanimal
Little Nightmares developer Tarsier Studios notably didn’t handle development on the recently released Little Nightmares 3. That’s because the team has been at work on an original project instead. Reanimal is a new creepy-cute horror game in the same vein as the Little Nightmares series, but with a much darker tone. You can see that on display in the game’s new Steam Next Fest demo, which has you following a pair of siblings through an unsettling world bathed in fog and dreary grey tones. It’s almost Inside-esque in look and feel. The snippet teases a scarier effort from Tarsier, but one that still features the studio’s minimalist puzzle-solving and knack for creating creepy spaces that you are desperate to escape from.
Godbreakers
There is no shortage of roguelikes to try during Next Fest, but Godbreakers stands out for a few reasons. Set to launch on Oct. 23, the latest game from Thunderful Publishing is a traditional hack-and-slash action game full of perk-granting upgrades that can change each run. Its special trick, though, is that you can absorb the enemies you fight and get access to a devastating special attack. It’s almost Kirby-like, but in a fast-paced action game filled with tough bosses strewn throughout interstellar biomes. Better yet, it can be played with up to four players, giving it real potential as a co-op game. Try it for yourself now if you want to mess around in its first few biomes and see what kind of powers you can absorb.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion
If you can manage to peel yourself away from Dotemu’s latest game, Absolum, you can try the publisher’s next promising beat-’em-up too. Marvel Cosmic Invasion is the next project from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge developer Tribute games, and it’s shaping up to be every bit as fun. Inspired by Marvel arcade classics, Cosmic Invasion pulls together standby heroes like Captain America with unexpected allies, including Venom. During Steam Next Fest, you can get a feel for the game’s slick 2D brawling and try out its unique tag system, which brings a surprising bit of Marvel vs. Capcom flair to a classic beat-’em-up.
The Legend of Khiimori
Of all the demos I’ve tried so far, The Legend of Khiimori is the most fascinating. The open-world game, which launches in early access on Nov. 4, puts you in the role of a courier in 13th-century Mongolia. Like many open-world heroes, she gets around the world on her horse. The difference here is that riding that horse is the center of the gameplay. Your four-legged friend isn’t just an invincible mount, but something you have to maintain and take care for. You need to keep it fed, manage its stamina, and treat its injuries. The Steam Next Fest demo gives you 90 minutes to explore the world and get a hang of how it all works. If you want to see just how deep it goes, head into the menu and look at your horse’s stats to see its DNA.
