Steam Next Fests are as delightful as they are overstimulating: There are so many interesting new games to sample, but there are so many new games to sample. That’s why we like to take stock after a couple days of demos to see which attracted the most attention—and what that leaves our wishlists looking like.
The top 50 most played demos from this season’s tastings show that no matter what your preferences are, you’ll probably find something promising to try. We’ve got extraction shooters, racing managers, turn-based and realtime strategy, and a skateboarding demon made out of glass. PC gaming is anything but a monoculture.
But it does have a lot of people who like physics-based medieval combat. Number one on the list is Half Sword—a notable frontrunner because it’s not a new demo, but the same tech playtest that’s been playable since May. Far be it from me to judge anyone for wanting to slam two plate-clad men at arms together in the world’s clumsiest combat.
For a runner up, we have Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, which calls itself “the official prequel hailing back to the origins of the genre-defining, critically acclaimed series of turn-based strategy games.” Olden Era just got its second delay announcement, but that hasn’t dimmed anyone’s interest. At time of writing, the demo’s sitting at a Mostly Positive rating after 2,700 reviews.
Rounding out the top three is Everwind, which mixes a Minecraft sandbox with a healthy amount of Skyrim combat and adds player-controlled, customizable airships in for good measure. If that sounds like a concoction mathematically formulated for success, you’re probably right—our Chris Livingston thought it was well worth the attention.
Next on the list is The Midnight Walkers, one of two extraction games among this Next Fest’s top 10. This one’s an FPS with zombies in it. The other, The Cube, Save Us, has a cube. Seemingly learning from Destiny that people love a massive, ominous shape looming in the atmosphere, it’s a third person, melee-centric extraction game whose Steam description asks the haunting question: “Will you face the cubes, or will you simply perish?”
Elsewhere, Final Sentence—a battle royale that tests typing speed and accuracy—is getting a lot of positive attention, and staff writer Harvey Randall thought it’s a worthwhile concept, even if it might need more time in the oven. And in the cooperative horror buffoonery space, news writer Elie Gould delighted in Yapyap’s shriek-based sorcery and piss wands before they were crushed by a disgruntled sorcerer.
Speaking of buffoonery, the demo for Crashout Crew, a cooperative physics-based forklift party game from the Peak devs at Aggro Crab, lands at number 10 on the list. Harvey says it’s both “incredibly cruel” and “a great time,” which is exactly what you’d hope for.
Following right behind the forklifts is Misery, which sends you into a Stalker-style anomaly-ridden wasteland on Lethal Company-esque scavenging runs to expand and upgrade your bunker. It’s got a procgen postnuclear Zone, there are hostile mutant deer, and you can smoke cigarettes in first person. That’s videogames.
Maybe the most surprising thing about this Next Fest’s heaviest hitters is that there’s not one, but two job simulators based around the concept of “a convenience store, but fucked up.” Roadside Research at number 16 puts players in the role of poorly disguised aliens operating a gas station as an undercover surveillance and research outpost to prep for an upcoming invasion, while Hellmart at rank 50 expects you to stock shelves and sell products to haunted clientele during the day while enduring warped, fleshy horrors at night.
Admittedly, that’s only marginally worse than the average retail work experience.
If you’d like to see what else is filling out the top 50—perhaps you’d also like to experience the raw terror of a Road to Vostok gunfight, for example—you can check out the top demos from the Charts tab on Steam’s Next Fest page.
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