Next Fest is back! The biannual Steam event that celebrates demos for hundreds of forthcoming games begins today, October 13, and runs until 1 p.m. ET on October 20. But with 3,276 demos to choose from, it’s an overwhelming beast. Fear not, for we—like the brave knights we are—are here to highlight some of the best we’ve found across a breadth of genres, from indie to AAA.
I like to think of Next Fest as the games industry’s demonstration that genres don’t mean anything any more, as the thousands of demos are categorized through a combination of lies and jazz, and the words “point-and-click” are taken to mean “games that feature pointy objects and clicking sounds.” It can make looking for particular types of games an astonishing headache. So instead, push all such intentions aside: Next Fest is best enjoyed by just scrolling through into the deepest recesses and installing anything that catches your eye. Forget about the sorts of games you already like; instead plunge in deep and experiment. And to save your scroll wheel, we’ve picked out a selection of games that could be your new big obsession.
Of course this in no way definitive! There will be hundreds of demos worth playing, and if you’ve discovered anything you’d recommend yourself, then we encourage you to do so in the comments.
Tingus Goose
Developer: SweatyChair
Release date: Q4 2025
Demo link
Normally with these roundups I like to start with a well-known name so everyone feels comfortable, safe, and familiar, before I then start adding the super-weird delights. But no such easing ourselves into the deep end today, because there is no more important demo to tell you about than Tingus Goose. I…words cannot suffice.
This is a clicker in the vein of Cookie Clicker, except you’re…well, listen, you’re clicking on the weird little baby-creatures called Tingus that fly out of the beak of a goose. A goose that is growing out of the belly of a lady lying on a bed. As you water your goose (you heard me) its neck grows longer, and it reaches for the loving kiss of another goose hanging down from the sky above. They want to mate, and it’s your job to have them meet. But you need money to water a goose, and that’s gained by, um, having the babies roll over protuberances that grow sideways out of the goose’s neck. That, as you’d expect, earns cash. And don’t worry, you can click on the babies, too, to get more money, but don’t click too often or they pop.
This is all a glorious piece of batshit crazy animation and gibberish game design, and I adore every second of it.
PowerWash Simulator 2
Developer: FuturLab
Release date: 23 Oct, 2025
Demo link
See, in other years this would have been my more welcoming first entry. We’re all looking forward to PowerWash Simulator 2, right? And now we finally get to play it! Hooray!
And yes, it is of course utterly marvelous. It’s more PowerWash Simulator, but slightly prettier and with less clunky controls. I am having to force myself to stop playing to write this, and play the rest of the demos, and it’s proving tricky, and that’s what PW always did best: take over your entire life with its demonic pressure-washing powers.
Slots And Daggers
Developer: Friedemann
Release date: October 24, 2025
Demo link
Oh my goodness this is the best I want to play it forever. This being Slots And Daggers, a post-Balatro roguelite slot machine game that purifies the mechanics to sweetest perfection. You begin by choosing the icons that can appear on the slots (starting with coins, sword attacks and shield) and then stop each dial to fight a monster. If you win, coins earned can be spent on new icons (perhaps a bow attack, or an upgrade to your shield), as well as on power-ups that boost your attacks, defense, and technique. You and the enemy have shield and health meters, with some attacks able to do true damage, others protected by your defenses. And, of course, the moment you lose it’s back to the start. Except you also win poker chips as you play, and these can be spent on “illegal” hacks to the slot machine that can permanently improve things.
It’s all there, right? All the ingredients of a great roguelite, in the neatest possible way. And I can assure you that it’s outstandingly moreish.
Mosaic of the Strange
Developer: Mark Ffrench
Release date: 7 Nov, 2025
Demo link
Mark Ffrench makes a very specific genre of game. It’s Fill-a-Pix puzzles writ large, the logic puzzle games that usually fill a small grid on your phone now taking up wall-size friezes. Proverbs was my favorite of his, a massive rendering of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting, Netherlandish Proverbs, turned into a puzzle. And that might sound pretentious, but damn it was wonderful. Later came 2024: Mosaic Retrospective, an incredible collage of events of the previous year, and next comes Mosaic of the Strange, the follow-up to a game I now realize I entirely missed, Mosaic of the Pharaohs. (I know what I’m doing when I should be working tomorrow…) Incredibly, this combines the puzzle concept with a point-and-click adventure, and my mind’s made up.
It’s hard to know how to convince a skeptic to give a game like this a try, but they’re blissfully absorbing and I really cannot recommend them enough.
Painkiller
Developer: Anshar Studios
Release date: 21 Oct, 2025
Demo link
I’d somehow entirely missed that Painkiller was coming back. As 3D Realms trawls its archives, 2004’s Painkiller is the latest recognizable name to get a total overhaul. A decade off has done it some good, and its return gives it fresh new central characters, and it’s playable alone or in 3-player co-op. It moves extremely quickly, which is my primary desire from any 3D Realms shooter, and the AI bots seem to do a decent enough job in the demo. It’s also gloriously gory and bursting with Quake 3 vibes.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era
Developer: Unfrozen
Release date: 2026
Demo link
Hands up, who’s old enough to remember the Heroes of Might & Magic games? No, it’s OK, don’t strain your arm. And let’s not even ask about the OG Might & Magic fans, as the breath of the question might cause them to collapse into dust. The RPG series goes back as far as 1986 incredibly, with its turn-based strategy spin-off Heroes of Might & Magic starting in 1995. Highly regarded turn-based strategy games right up until they weren’t, the series saw diminishing returns beginning with HOMM 5 and 2015’s Might & Magic Heroes VII polished the whole franchise off for a decade.
Well, it’s back, and its latest entry is coming from Iratus developer Unfrozen. Apparently it has the good sense not to meddle with a beloved formula, letting you build your mythological armies and grow a town, with its emphasis squarely on recreating everyone’s happy memories of HOMM 3. And look, I could lie to you and pretend I understood this demo, but turn-based strategy is a genre I have never gotten my head around. I’m just excited for all the Might & Magic fans I’ve known and loved that it’s back.
Kingdom of Night
Developer: Friends of Safety
Release date: Q4 2025
Demo link
I installed this one on a complete whim, and I’m very glad I did. It’s an RPG by way of a point-and-click adventure, set in 1980s Arizona with some heavy Stranger Things vibes. You play a teenage kid at high school who finds himself embroiled in a bizarre adventure of invading demons and magical powers. The demo immediately shows how the characteristics you pick affect how you play, with a choice between brains and brawn opening up different conversation options and ways to handle school encounters. It comes with an intricate spell system, real-time combat, and lots of lovely isometric pixel graphics. And I’m really getting into it. This was first announced six years ago, but is apparently arriving this year, complete with an option to play the whole adventure in co-op.
Servant of the Lake
Developer: Rusty Lake
Release date: 2026
Demo link
The incredible Rusty Lake series just celebrated its 10th anniversary with a typically macabre birthday game, but now is back with an upcoming full entry in the long-running Lynchian series. Servant of the Lake has the player arrive to the Vanderboom house by horse and cart, there to be a servant to the family for a single weekend. However, long-term fans will realize this puts us in the era of the first generation of the Vanderbooms, and thus in the presence of Aldous Vanderboom, the man who becomes the series peculiar antagonist, Mr. Crow. And, honestly, you own it to yourself to play every Rusty Lake game in order, building up to next year’s release of this one.
Reanimal
Developer: Tarsier Studios
Release date: TBA
Demo link
Reanimal is of course what Tarsier Studios is making instead of Little Nightmares 3. It’s a whole new project from the team and, still a year on from its announcement, it doesn’t yet have a release date. But at least we can play some of it now! You play as a sack-headed boy, who begins the game steering a boat to pull a mask-wearing girl from the sea, before finally reaching dry land and beginning the adventure of their attempt to escape their hellish home. It’s all extremely atmospheric, but very slow to get going for a demo. Still, persist and you’ll experience this horror-themed adventure for a decent while.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion
Developer: Tribute Games
Release date: 2025
Demo link
I am delighted to report that Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a complete delight. Tribute Games follows up TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge with another old-school side-scrolling beat ’em up, this time with a broad cast of Marvel heroes to biff with. You pick two at a time (Spider-Man and She Hulk make for a great pairing), then alternate between the two of them as you set up combos and Streets of Rage your way down these pixel-perfect streets. In fact, it’s so Streets of Rage that you even eat food you find by smashing garbage cans, just like real superheroes do.
It’s so colorful and punchy (in every sense) that it feels like it could be a classic arcade cabinet hit from the ’80s, rejuvenated for modern machines.
