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CNET
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Top 10 Best Steam Next Fest Demos to Play Now
It's nearly time for the Steam summer sale, which is one of the biggest retail events for patient PC gamers. It's also the perfect time to find new and innovative indie games to add to your wishlist: Before each big Steam sale, Valve runs a Next Fest event to let developers show off their projects, get feedback and build hype before their big release. Summer 2025's Next Fest has been chock full of Hades-likes, co-op hack-and-slash adventures and other reliably entertaining games but some of the best stuff in this event is what the algorithm doesn't show you. I've played dozens of demos, ranging from games that are featured on the front page of the store to hidden gems that take some digging to find. Here are the best PC games from this Next Fest showcase that you absolutely need to have wishlisted. Dead as Disco A groovy beat 'em up to the beat Brain Jar Games' Dead as Disco combines Hi-Fi Rush's rhythmic combat with Sifu's brutal beatdowns. It's up to you to pilot Charlie Disco as he braves neon-soaked city streets to take out his ex-bandmates in an '80s-themed revenge quest. As you punch, kick, parry and dodge through throngs of thugs, fights transform into carefully choreographed dances, with every blow landing to the beat of the music. Did I mention that the demo's featured song is a cover of Michael Sembello's Maniac? Dead as Disco embraces the cheesiness of the movies it's obviously inspired by but the game is built on the solid foundations of a kinetic and satisfying combat system. Dead as Disco doesn't have a release date yet but this is one Next Fest demo that has converted me into a day-one customer. Platforms: PC Voidbreaker A breakneck FPS with a focus on environmental destruction I'm a sucker for first-person shooters and developer Stubby Games' Voidbreaker (styled as Void/Breaker) is scratching my itch for a fast-paced, destruction-heavy shooter romp. You're trapped in a combat simulation to fulfill the every whim of a rogue AI, as it tests and perfects killer robots using your training data. But a mysterious voice in the system tells you there's a chance to escape -- if you play your cards right. Voidbreaker is a project created by the same solo dev behind The Entropy Centre, and the once-sterile-now-dilapidated sci-fi visuals make a comeback here. Instead of navigating this urban decay, you'll turn it against your foes. In addition to classic movement shooter gameplay, players will force grip and toss environmental objects and blow building supports to smithereens with well-placed grenades. Fully simulated physics objects rain down on enemies, allowing you to weaponize the world around you. Players can upgrade their grip, grenade or gun with mods found around the map, granting them better odds of successfully completing a run and getting one step closer to escaping the simulation. My favorite find was a legendary mod that turned my pistol rounds into a short-range field of electric sparks but there are dozens of loadout-altering abilities to play around with. You'll get your shot at breaking out of the simulation soon. Voidbreaker will be released on Aug. 20. Platforms: PC Morsels The Binding of Isaac featuring grungy little Pokemon When you see Annapurna's publisher seal in a game trailer, odds are good that the demo won't disappoint. And if you enjoy twin-stick shooter roguelikes akin to Binding of Isaac, you certainly can't go wrong with developer Furcula's Morsels. This game takes place in a world where magical cards fell from space, allowing certain creatures to take on powerful monster forms (it's like a grotesque twist on magical girls). Unfortunately, a gang of hardened criminals rules the world with their superior cards, leaving weaklings -- that's you -- to scurry away from danger and try to scrape by in the muck. When you discover your own card powers, you realize it's time to take the fight to the baddies. A competent twin-stick shooter in its own right, Morsels' big twist is the ability to find additional monster cards that let you diversify your abilities. Certain Morsels fire streams of low damage bullets, others fire shotgun blasts and rarer Morsels have special abilities that can create powerful damage-dealing synergies as a team. If you're looking for a dash of on-the-fly strategizing in your action roguelikes, Morsels is right up your alley. The game's cute-but-grungy aesthetic and retro graininess are a neat artistic bonus. Morsels will be released in 2025. Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch Dragon March A sixth generation console's arcade adventure GameCube aesthetics are so back. Developer Ambystoman's Dragon March is what you'd get if the classic arcade game Snake was built for sixth-generation consoles. Players guide Cereal the mecha-dragon through twisting and turning levels to find and reboot his friends, with a retro vibe reminiscent of Dreamcast's ChuChu Rocket. Unfortunately, the cyberspace world is dangerous and there are enemies who'd want to see the adorable polygonal metal lizards shut back down. You'll be able to speed up or slow down the cadence of Cereal's march to avoid slithering centipedes, fireball projectiles and more. Just be careful not to loop around into one of the friendly dragons following your lead. Just like in the original iteration of Snake, it's a surefire way to get a game over. Dragon March doesn't have a release date yet but it's coming along brilliantly with cutscenes and graphics that remind me of classic Digimon. Platforms: PC House of Necrosis Classic survival horror with a turn-based twist I didn't realize that I needed a Frankensteined combination of classic Resident Evil and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon in my life and I'm sure you didn't realize you needed this either. But developer Warkus is an absolute visionary so the turn-based RPG House of Necrosis is shambling into our lives nonetheless. In House of Necrosis, you're stepping into the role of a legally distinct female special agent investigating zombies in a legally distinct ever-shifting mansion but instead of fumbling with tank controls, the entire game takes place on a grid. You'll have to carefully plan every step to descend deeper into the mansion while staying healthy, conserving bullets and still earning enough experience to level up and get stronger. Each run is a brutal test of your wits and it's easy to get cornered by shamblers, zombified dogs and other nasty monsters. If you're truly unlucky, you might find yourself stalked by a giant zombie with a blade arm -- his presence inspires fear not unlike Nemesis from Resident Evil 3. House of Necrosis doesn't have a release date yet but the demo is a very polished look at what's to come. Platforms: PC, Linux DuneCrawl Desert freedom fighting in four player co-op Developer Alientrap's DuneCrawl is a great hack-and-slash adventure that supports up to four-player co-op -- I played solo but this game is definitely built to be enjoyed with your friends. In DuneCrawl, terracotta warriors attack your peaceful village with the eponymous Dune Crawler (a massive crustacean converted into a weapons platform). It's up to you and your friends to defeat the invaders, take back the sentient ship and pilot it around a massive map to wipe out any other ne'er-do-wells that roam the sandy seas. DuneCrawl's gameplay is split between on-foot combat where players can use swords, bows, bombs and primitive guns to get the upper hand and Dune Crawler spelunking, where your team will explore the world and use cannons to fight massive opponents. This game has an incredible capacity for co-op chaos but a team of people who often play together will surely move like a well-oiled machine. DuneCrawl will be released in 2025. Platforms: PC Hell Clock Diablo-esque dark fantasy ARPG rooted in real Brazilian history Developer Rogue Snail's Hell Clock is a dark fantasy reimagining of Brazil's War of Canudos -- introducing many gamers (myself included) to a bloody historical period. Pajeu is battling the Republic's military forces when the dead rise once again. Now he's forced to fight a war on two fronts to save his friends and comrades from mortal peril and change the course of history. Hell Clock is an extremely competent Diablo-like action RPG -- it's also a speedrunning game in its own right, because you have a timer ticking down to beat the levels in your run. New buffs automatically apply to your build, keeping you in the action. Once you fail a run, you get sent back to the hub area, where you can unlock new permanent gear and other meta-progression buffs from a massive skill tree. There's a lot to see and do in Hell Clock and your power will cascade as you unlock more powerful abilities and augments. Even casual action RPG fans will find a game they can spend a lot of time with here. Hell Clock will be released on July 22. Platforms: PC 1000 Deaths Psychedelic 3D spelunking through headspace Developer Pariah Interactive's 1000 Deaths is a surrealist platformer (think Psychonauts on even more psychedelic substances) focused on the big "what if" moments everyone experiences throughout life. As you get dragged into the headspaces of four separate characters, you'll alter their life's history by completing puzzling platforming challenges. Players will have to fiddle with gravity as they walk around curved levels, with gameplay reminiscent of some of Super Mario Galaxy's best moments. The decisions you make will alter the narrative and the platforming mechanics of future levels: I sent the rat-like creature, Vayu, to Hollywood with their friend rather than having them stay in their hometown, which opened a diverging branch of levels to explore. I think 1000 Deaths will have a lot of replay value, as most gamers will want to find hidden secrets and explore every branching path. 1000 Deaths will be released on Aug. 7. Platforms: PC Passant: A Chess Roguelike What if Balatro was chess? Developer Marc Makes Games' Passant is to chess what Balatro is to poker and that's no exaggeration. The big difference is that Passant requires you to put in a bit of work -- you need to have a solid understanding of the tabletop game before you start fiddling with all the bells and whistles this game adds. As you defeat enemy setups in Passant, you gain cash that you can spend on new pieces, temporary power-ups and badges that fundamentally change the rules of the game. The benefits you gain from a badge can be as simple as adding more turn undos for each game you play or as wacky as letting you promote units like bishops and rooks if you can successfully move them to the other side of the board. I really suck at chess but I was able to roll through a couple games on the normal difficulty once I put a good setup into play. I'm fond of the dragon bishops, a special unit that can take enemies diagonally or in any adjacent square. Every third round you play, you'll go up against a boss board with buffing badges of their own. I've been able to conquer the first boss a handful of times but that second boss has proven to be a bit of a doozy. Elon Musk infamously said he doesn't like chess because it doesn't have tech trees. That's pretty on-brand for the Tesla CEO, but at least Passant exists so he can take another crack at one of the most pedigreed board games in history. Passant: A Chess Roguelike will be released on Aug. 11. Platforms: PC Under The Island One teenager's tropical island-spanning Zelda adventure Developer Slime King Games' Under The Island combines 2D RPG hack-and-slash action with a heaping helping of teen angst, daring to ask: What if a moody teenager was thrust into Link's Awakening? Nia's parents are moving to Seashell Island to research the local ruins, which means she'll be sequestered on an island with no friends and nothing to do for a whole year. That might seem like a crummy deal, except for the fact that she immediately falls into an undiscovered cave and meets an ancient bird person while her family is unpacking the car. Nia discovers Seashell Island is on the verge of sinking beneath the waves so she has to go on a classical '90s-themed quest for the MacGuffins. Players will need to brave the deceptively gorgeous pixel art island and its nasty critters, find upgrades and solve puzzles to unearth the mysteries of Nia's new home. This game is classic Zelda through-and-through, and anyone who enjoys Link's original adventures will appreciate this contemporary take on the genre. Under The Island's release date has yet to be revealed -- but just like with the other entries on this list, the best way to stay updated on a cool-looking game is to add it to your Steam wishlist. Platforms: PC
The Verge
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Four great games from Steam's June Next Fest
Steam's June 2025 edition of its Next Fest is going on now through June 16th, and the event is packed with great-looking demos for games coming to PC. Seriously, it seems like there are a lot of demos; a search filter on my Next Fest homepage shows more than 2,500 English demos to pick from. If you open up the Next Fest page and are overwhelmed, I get it – admittedly, I am, too. But I've played a few and have four to recommend. Mina the Hollower Mina the Hollower, the next game from Shovel Knight creators Yacht Club Games, feels like a Game Boy Color title made in the modern era. You play as Mina the mouse in a top-down action-adventure game that reminds me a lot of Link's Awakening. Mina's signature move is a slick burrowing ability that lets you zip around underground for a few seconds, and even in the short demo, I found it immensely useful to get under obstacles or create space during hairy fights. The demo ends with an exciting boss fight, and I was sad when it was over after about 30 minutes. I'm really looking forward to the game's full release on October 31st. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a retro-style side-scrolling action-platformer with gorgeous pixel art and an electric guitar-filled soundtrack. Like other Ninja Gaiden games, it's filled with flashy combat and a lot of blood, but I also quite liked the old-school platforming – there's a lot of double-jumping off enemies, which never gets old. Like other Dotemu games, Ragebound seems to perfectly capture an old-school vibe but with a game made in 2025. And after finishing the three levels in the demo, I'm eager to play the rest of the game when it's out on July 31st. Ball X Pit Within moments of starting the Ball X Pit demo, I openly said to myself, 'oh no.' Not because it's bad. But because it immediately grabbed me as an engrossing blend of roguelikes, Puzzle Bobble, Breakout, and Vampire Survivors. As enemies slowly advance toward you, you move your character around and fire balls at them, which you can bounce off walls or even between enemies. (Naturally, you'll have to dodge bullets from the bad guys, too.) Dead enemies drop experience gems, and when you level up, you can pick from various upgrades, like balls that shock nearby foes. You can even fuse balls together, and between runs there's a land management game. And for the people that this will matter to, your health meter looks like it was taken right from Diablo. I can see losing a lot of time to Ball X Pit when it's out later this year. Word Play Word Play, from Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit, mixes ideas from Balatro and word games. Each round, you're tasked with getting a specific score by spelling words that can be up to ten characters long before you run out of turns. As with games like Scrabble, different letter tiles have different point values, and words with five letters or more will get added bonus points that will help you reach the goal score more quickly. When you reach the goal score, you move on to the next round, which will have a higher goal. But you'll also be able to pick from an upgrade of some kind, like a modifier that automatically applies a 3x multiplier to the second tile of any word you spell. Unlike the rest of the demos I've recommended here, Word Play is a chill puzzle game, but like with Balatro, I found myself trying to sneak in one more run instead of going to bed. The game is set to launch on July 14th.
National Post
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- National Post
Things to do in Edmonton: NextFest, The Wallflowers, Art on the Block and more
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content NextFest: Every script starts with a single word, every song a single note. Article content Article content But that moment when an artist first performs in front of a crowd is when the true magic begins — which is what NextFest is all about, celebrating its 30 th anniversary. Article content Article content With hundreds of emerging (and, honestly, established) artists featured in NextFest's 50-plus events, theatre, film, dance, concerts, visual arts, workshops and more smash about in a whirlwind of ideas and innovation where many local well-knowns launched. Article content The full schedule is broken up by categories including its high school components, super-fun Nite Clubs and Mercy Funk-curated music — including the outdoor music showcase at Helen Nolan Park (12327 108 Ave.) at 4 p.m. Thursday with video game jazz band Pure Octane. Article content Article content Details: Though June 15 at Roxy Theatre (10708 124 St.), $15 single tix, $30 day pass, $45 fest pass Article content The Wallflowers: Speaking of people once known to be kids, Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers are in town. Article content Formed by Dylan and Tobi Miller way back in '89, Dylan surprised former Wallflowers guitar player Michael Ward, playing together for the first time in two decades shortly before the latter died last year. Article content Article content The band's latest album Exit Wounds has a nice Tom Petty vibe, so this should be a good one. Article content Detroit roots-rock Brother Elsey opens up the show and will hopefully forgive you for checking the Game 2 score as they play. Article content
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
11 Fantastic Free Demos Not To Miss In February's Steam Next Fest
February 2025's Steam Next Fest is upon us, which means there are once again hundreds of free demos to checkout for all different kinds of upcoming PC games. The hail from all different genres and teams, and range from very good to absolutely terrible. Steam is normally a mess to browse, and Next Fest is the usual discoverability labyrinth on steroids. So we've been playing stuff to see what has that special spark. Here are some of the games we've been enjoying and mesmerized by from Steam's latest free demo bonanza. Kathy Rain is finally back, eight years after her last, fantastic adventure. She's now working full-time as a PI, but it's not going well, money is about to run out, and she's betting everything on solving a series of local murders by a serial killer called The Soothsayer. The demo gives a good chunk of game, and some excellent puzzles. — John Walker Release: TBA If you thought Steamboat Willie's entering the public domain was just going to secure you a few terrible horror movies, think again. It's also going to score one of the most astonishingly disturbing games I've ever played. And I'm pretty sure it's good? Bad Cheese's demo is a monstrously upsetting in which you play a bloated, morbidly obese Mickey Mouse, desperately trying to find pills for his mutant dog-like father-creature. Oh god, even the sound effects make me curl up to remember. — John Walker Release: TBA This twin-stick shooter does more interesting things in its demo than so many games offer in their entirety. It's a game where your health bars are also your ammo, so attacking makes you vulnerable, and that's a damned fine idea alone. Then it gets more complicated. — John Walker Release: TBA Bad Cheese isn't the only disturbing black-and-white demo we've found this Next Fest. Kiddo is a monochrome point-and-click adventure in which you play a masked figure who lives in disgusting solitude, finally spurred to leave his couch by the disappearance of his dog. In the demo, you're mostly focused on trying to clean the toilet. And it's so good. — John Walker Release: TBA Race around collecting golden gears and other stuff in a beautiful seaside world where you surf around with the flare and ease of an animated '90s cereal mascot. Demon Tides is a follow-up to Demon Turf: Neon Splash. There are only about five short levels in the demo so it's only a taste, but I already want more. I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, I mean Demon Tides. — Ethan Gach Release: TBD 2025 Set in Quito, Ecuador in 2001, Despelote is an urban walking sim where you learn about a neighborhood and its residents by kicking a soccer ball around. Its collage art-style is evocative, the music is beautiful, and the dream-like exploration of someone else's mundane memories is affecting and hard to shake. — Ethan Gach Release: May 1, 2025 Colorful, fast-paced parkour in a whimsical world that's constantly falling apart around you. That's Haste: Broken Worlds in a nutshell, a very neat action platformer that can feel like a mashup of Sonic and a Studio Ghibli movie. I love it. One YouTube comment put it best. 'They actually made the 'Awesome Parkour Guy You Watched Out The Back Seat Car Window When You Were a Kid' game.' — Ethan Gach Release: TBD Mashina is a stop-motion strategy sim where you play a robot digging through the earth to harvest resources and repair the world around you using machines. Think stripped-down elements of Minecraft and Factorio wrapped around a cute, child-like adventure. The demo is super short and gave me ToeJam & Earl vibes (complimentary), and the mixed-media visual style is top-notch. — Ethan Gach Release: TBD 2025 Is This Seat Taken is the perfect kind of puzzle game. It has a simple setup—sort out differently-shaped people correctly—and so excellently and confidently nails that premise that playing it feels like someone injecting dopamine directly into your brain. I burned through the demo so fast that I was sad I have to now wait to play the full game. — Zack Zwiezen Release: TBA The latest game from XCOM creator Julian Gollop isn't what you might expect. Chip 'n Clawz vs. The Brainioids is a third-person shooter tower defense strategy game that features colorful visuals and large open maps to explore. It's like someone mixed together Ratchet and Clank with Orcs Must Die and added a tactical vision mode, too. Sounds a bit odd, but it's really fun and feels great even in this unfinished state. — Zack Zwiezen Release: TBA TMNT: Tactical Takedown is pitched as a turn-based beat'em up and while that sounded strange, after playing the new demo, I'm totally in. This new TMNT game is turn-based, sure, but moves fast thanks to the fact that every few turns part of the map falls away. So you are forced to keep moving through crowds of enemies and use each turtle's unique abilities to fight while picking up pizza for health. It's a little harder than I expected, but I think this is something special. — Zack Zwiezen Release: TBA For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
