Summer’s Steam Next Fest brings so very many demos to our PCs today

Hundreds of demos for upcoming indie games of all kinds will flood onto PC today when June’s Steam Next Fest kicks off at 6pm BST. I’ve already downloaded a smattering of them in advance and my hard drive is positively creaking. Check out a slice of what demos are up for download in the trailer below.

It doesn’t really matter what genres you’re into because there’s almost too much stuff to take a look at, even if you spent the whole week of Steam Next Fest downloading and playing demos. So far, I’ve plundered self-styled ‘decksploration’ card game Foretales, which has narration by Critical Role’s Travis Willingham, and a complicated-looking strategy called Terra Invicta from the devs behind XCOM’s The Long War mod. Red Candle Games’ Sekiro-like platformer Nine Sols is piquing my interest as well. Have a sift through yourself here when Next Fest starts later today.

Steam Next Fest comes around on a regular basis to give us a free reminder that all types of games can be good, actually. I usually try quite a few that I wouldn’t necessarily play otherwise. It harks back to a time of cover-mounted demo discs from your favourite magazines, which brings a misty-eyed look upon my hairy, time-weathered face. Valve says they’re giving out badges for playing varying amounts of demos now too, so that’s a thing that’s happening.

This summer’s Steam Next Fest kicks off at 6pm BST/7pm CEST/10am PST on June 13th, which is this very day. The event runs through June 20th, so you’ve got a week to play through those demos folks.

Not E3 2022 is in full-swing – see everything in our E3 2022 hub, as well as our complete round-up of everything announced at Summer Game Fest 2022. Many more big game showcases and streams are still to come this summer, so make sure you stay up to date with our summer games stream schedule.