Steam Next Fest returns with thousands of new demos to try out

Valve has been routinely kicking off demo festivals on Steam for years now, and the second drop of 2026 has just opened its doors. It's a great opportunity for any PC gamers to find some interesting games before they release. The June edition of Steam Next Fest is a week-long digital festival including gameplay slices from a large number of indie developers, though a few major publishers are involved this time too.

Interested players can use the Next Fest hub page's various sorting and filtering options to easily sort through the hordes of demos available. The top buttons offer quick access to separate and important sorting options, including "By Genre, By Theme, By Feature," with each one offering more granular settings when clicked.

At the same time, the built-in Steam tags system is also available below every page to discover new games more quickly. As always, logging in will also enable Steam gamers to utilize Valve's recommendation algorithms to find game demos they might like, specifically, depending on their past play and purchase histories. This time there is even a toggle now to swap between getting a random and personalized selection as Valve collects more data on the available demos.

The Charts section is where you can find the most popular demos on the platform right now, offering up the most hyped titles in a simple list. Right at the kickoff, Mistfall Hunter, Empulse, Echoes of Aincrad, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Over the Hill, Mortal Shell II, and more are trending. Expect this list to change as the week progresses.

This edition of the Steam Next Fest is slated to end on June 22 at 10 AM PT. Valve's latest event is now open, and it can be accessed by going to the dedicated hub page here.