© ROOT-NATION.com - Use of content is permitted with a backlink.
Valve has been hosting regular demo festivals on Steam for many years, and the second event of 2026 has just kicked off. This is a great opportunity for PC gamers to check out exciting games before they’re released. The June edition of Steam Next Fest is a week-long festival featuring demos of a large number of titles, primarily from indie developers, though several major publishers have also joined the event this time around.
Read also: AERONAUT – everything that flies above the ground: aviation, UAVs and drones, rockets, and space
For convenience, use the various sorting tools on the Next Fest homepage, as it will otherwise be difficult to navigate the vast number of available demos. The top buttons provide quick access to specific sorting categories, including “By Genre,” “By Theme,” and “By Feature.” Each one opens additional detailed settings when clicked.
Read also: Video Game Reviews
At the same time, Steam’s built-in tagging system is available on every page, helping you find new games faster. As before, logging into Steam allows you to use Valve’s recommendation algorithms to find demos that might interest a specific user based on their gaming history and purchases. This time, there’s also a toggle between random and personalized selections. The latter will be available starting Wednesday at 10 AM PT, and until then, Steam will be analyzing the games participating in the event.
Read also: Forza Horizon 6 review: Same Festival, Perfect New Address
In the Charts section, you can find the platform’s most popular demos at the moment. The most anticipated projects are presented there in a simple list. At the start of the festival, the trending games included the dark fantasy title Mistfall Hunter, the simulator IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator, the motion-based shooter Empulse, and the crafting shooter Enginefall, Echoes of Aincrad, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Over the Hill, and others. This list is expected to change throughout the week.
In addition, the festival features Hollow Home, an isometric narrative RPG inspired by the Russian-Ukrainian war. It is expected to be released later this year.
This time, Steam Next Fest will run until June 22 at 10 AM PT.
Read also:
- Crimson Desert gets an update: Pearl Abyss fixes its most frustrating minigame
- LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight review: TT Games finally made the Batman game Rocksteady never got to finish