Steam Next Fest 2023 Demo Highlights

The final Next Fest for 2023 is back with hundreds of fresh demos to try, and we’ve rounded up some of our favorites so far. The latest Steam Next Fest is upon us, bringing with it a freshly packed week of new, free demos to try until Monday, October 16th. There are literally hundreds you could try installing if you were that way inclined – you can view the full list right here if you’d rather browse through it at your own leisure – but we’ve been playing some of these demos in advance to help make wading through its torrent of shiny new games a little bit easier. Below, you’ll find 12 of our favorites so far, ranging from snazzy-looking shooters and big RTS games to neat little autobattlers, indie immersive sims, and retro puzzle platformers. If you’re in need of some guidance this Steam Next Fest, read on.

Truth be told, loads of games have already jumped the gun on this year’s Next Fest, and have been putting their demos live over the course of the last week, such as shellfish Soulslike Another Crab’s Treasure, first-person puzzler The Talos Principle 2, motorvania Laika: Aged Through Blood, and big stride-y FPS RoboCop: Rogue City. You can find them in the big Next Fest list as well, but what we’ve got here are 12 fresh demos we wanted to bring to your attention on top of all those. As with previous Next Fests, we had access to a pretty hefty wodge of this year’s Next Fest demos – not all of them, alas, but certainly a lot – so think of this as an initial tasting suggestion, rather than a comprehensive list of everything that’s worth playing. We’ll be doing our best to unearth more hidden gems as the week goes on, but for now, here are our initial Next Fest highlights.