By this point, we should know the song and dance: the Steam Next Fest is an amazing way to find out about new games, especially those that don’t have a lot of typical coverage in media. In the past we’ve dug around as a group to find some fun titles. Sometimes they are misses, sometimes they are a fun distraction, and sometimes they end up immediately joining our wishlists.
After spending the last four days spending some time each night trying out a bunch of games, I’m happy to showcase a set of games that I found fun or had potential. I purposefully selected a bunch from different styles and different genres, so some of them might not be to your personal taste. The main goal was to showcase the breadth of game styles that you can find during a steam next fest, both to help good game developers get their projects onto wishlists, but to also encourage gamers to explore more outside of their usual genres and store algorithms.
I mean, where else can I find games about getting revenge for a river set on fire by capitalism?
Outbound: Cozy Survival Camping
This game by far was the most chill experience I’ve had in a game in a long time… to the point that I wasn’t sure if I was doing something wrong. From what I can tell there is no true villain, no massive plot… just you deciding to take a camper out on a road trip and clear your mind.
This isn’t a criticism, just more of a way to let people know what to expect. I’m a big fan of survival/craft games, and they can vary from incredibly intense (Green Hell) to story driven adventures (Subnautica) to more cozy ‘take at your own pace’, where you turn on creative mode and go wild. This is very much the latter, where the demo lets you drive around, start learning blueprints by cleaning up garbage, and learn how to travel in your camper/mobile base.
While the demo is much more basic, I adore the concept of making your base this cool traveling utopia.
One thing I really like is how you essentially take your base with you. It was fun running around to the back of the van to see your workbench and camp pop out. This might be TOO relaxed for some, but based on some of the images I’ve seen of what you can eventually build, this might be a really fun palette cleanser for many who just want to relax and capture a sense of camping. Outbound is set for release in Q2 of 2026.
Fogpiercer: Trains, Cards, and Roguelikes, a Dangerous Combo
This was the first demo this year I had to actively stop myself from playing more. It’s just an addictive combo. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: you use cards to navigate a bunch of individual encounters on an abstract map to try and make it to final bosses, constantly trying to sculpt your deck into something more efficient and dangerous. Heck, one of the gimmicks of this deckbuilder is that you use a train, and we’ve already seen that done really well in the Monster Train series!
Just within the first hour, you can start to get the idea of how complicated this can get.
Here’s the secret sauce that hooked me however: making it a tactics game. Final Fantasy Tactics was one of my first true gaming loves, so after two combats in Fogpiecer, I knew I was hooked. Your attacks and actions are based on the train cars you have, meaning attacks are based on where each car is located. You can knock around enemies into chasms, or when they die, they explode and deal collateral damage to you or other foes. It reminds me of Slay The Spire mixed with the movement puzzle of Into The Breach, and that’s all I need.
The writing is on the wall for this one for me. Fogpiercer comes out sometime this year, and I can’t wait to see how intricate and intense the combat can get.
Aethus: Scottish Survival In Space
Oh that's not foreboding at all!
I already said I have a soft spot for story based survival games, so this is another I had to actively stop myself from playing more of. Aethus is a third person survival game, where you find yourself on a desolate rock attempting to find something special so you can finally break free of corporate power.
If you love the idea of building your own base, exploring through becoming better and more efficient at crafting, and just enjoying some wonderful banter with a Scottish accent, Aethus is going to be a slam dunk for you. I’ll be supporting it as it’s a passion project of an ex AAA game dev who went independent, it’s proudly anti-AI, and only going to be $20. Also, it comes out next week, on March 6th, without any early access! Give the demo a shot, and see if you should save for it.
Hordes of Fate: An Old Friend Returns In A New Genre
This one is going to be a must buy for me, but I’ll fully admit that could just be some personal nostalgia talking. You see, a decade a go as we first started off, a small company called Defiant Entertainment made a roguelike called Hand of Fate, and we really enjoyed it. It was my introduction to the genre, and I loved the fortune-telling narrator constantly jabbing at me as things went wrong.
That game’s style and substance has returned, just shifted into a new genre. While the first two games were more of an action-adventure, this one is more of a bullet-heaven, reminding me of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivors or Spell Brigade. I’ll admit I was worried this could just feel like a reskin or cheap cash grab, but the demo absolutely drips with the same flavor I remember fondly. The narrator constantly ribs you and teases hints of a greater story as you run around and pick up items, fight foes, and try and survive as things constantly get worse.
The slower moment-to-moment gameplay in this genre might make this a divisive choice for some, but it's something I personally enjoy to break up the action.
It’s a slightly slower game than say, Vampire Survivors, using their signature card system to deal out new events. Many of these will have a little ‘token’ attached that if you beat that event, might unlock new gear options or foes or narrative progression. I know I’ll be enjoying the more methodical pace, as it makes it differ from others in the genre.
Hordes of Fate will be coming out in Q2 of 2026.
All Will Rise: Ecoterrorism and Lawyers, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Finally, my surprise of this season. All Will Rise knocked me off balance in a few ways. To begin, I’m not usually attracted to visual novel games; I respect that people love the genre, I just wasn’t raised with it and so it doesn’t often come to mind. I usually associate these style games with romances, which again, just not my rodeo. However, when I saw that the subject matter was related to environmental catastrophe, had a card-based social combat system, and was going to deal with questions such as ecoterrorism and capitalism, I had to give it a shot.
The demo is 3 hours long, and absolutely blew me away. It took a little while to get fully on board with the cadence of the game, but once I did, I found it incredibly addicting and engaging, wanting to know what next story element could be discovered or personal choice unlocked. Once the initial tutorial is completed and you find out you are attempting to get payback for a river set on fire from pollution, you spend each day sending your task force to convince people to investigate the oil spill, discover sympathizers for your plight, and convince others to join your cause.
Social combat is done through playing cards to try and convince others, but your actions and when you play the cards might increase or decrease the credibility of your arguments, have you gain or lose cards from your deck, and advance the plotline. In just an hour or two of gameplay, I had spent time trying to glean facts from a fisherman witness who was worried 5G would fry your brain while also engaging in communion with someone performing rituals of rage, acting as a personification of the dead river. It’s surreal and bright and angry and beautiful and captivating.
From just this demo, I could go on and on about so many little details; I discovered just how stacked the development team is, with many devs coming from a personal favorite, Horizon Zero Dawn. How the team includes professors who write about climate change and modern eco-politics. How just by using the name Muzuris for the game world, they are at once making this an alternate earth and a direct correlation. There’s a lot of thought put into this game, and I know that there is a good chance it will become my personality for a few weeks when it releases.
All Will Rise is currently on Kickstarter, and is already funded! The hopeful release is for December 2026, but additional backing will allow the developers to add more content. Check it out for yourself!
Support Smaller Creators, Love Games That Take Risks
And there you have it! Out of the hundreds of demos that were available, here were five gems I found which ended up on my wishlist when all was said and done. I hope that there’s at least one that appeals to you as a reader, and that you have also had a chance on your own to find some games that feel like they speak directly to you.
Our intention is to shine a spotlight on good work and interesting ideas in the gaming world. Just remember: by spending your time and money on games outside of those that already have huge followings or franchises, you are helping in some small way to enrich and grow the potential of games just a little more.
Update: With the February Steam Next Fest over as of March 2nd, a quick check shows that each of these games still has an active demo you can try! Just search for it by typing in the name and ‘demo’. Good luck!
