Next Fest October 2025 - LIVE NOW
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Steam Next Fest is a week-long celebration featuring hundreds of FREE playable demos as well as developer livestreams and chats. Players try out upcoming games on Steam pre-release, developers gather feedback and build an audience ahead of their Steam launch, everyone wins!

This Next Fest runs until October 20, 10 am Pacific.

  • Goodeye8@piefed.socialEnglish
    10·
    6 days ago

    I haven’t tried the Next Fest demo yet but I’m going to shout out Road to Vostok. It’s kind of like a single player version of Escape From Tarkov. You have a hideout/shelter, you go out to looting and then you get to come back and improve your hideout. The hideout customization is excellent. Outside you have to deal with enemies, environment, food, hydration, energy etc. and if you die outside you lose what you had on you.

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      5 days ago

      Oooh. Grabbing.

      But one major nitpick

      It’s kind of like a single player version of Escape From Tarkov.

      Yeah. That is called STALKER. Especially since, based on the store page, this is more of a zoned open world than an instanced extraction shooter?

      • Goodeye8@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        5 days ago

        The game is somewhere between Stalker and Tarkov but I’d say it’s more Tarkov than Stalker. Stalker is more focused around mutants, anomalies and artifacts, none of which are in this game. The only things that separate this game from Tarkov is the lack of online component and no map timer. Tarkov is also moving towards a zoned open-world so I think the comparison with Tarkov is perfectly fine.

        And the developer has mentioned both as inspiration:

        In terms of other games, Road to Vostok takes inspiration from titles Stalker Anomaly, DayZ, Project Zomboid and Escape from Tarkov.

    • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      Just tried it out. I’m unfamiliar with the extraction shooter genre, but it was interesting, I’m not necessarily opposed to tactical complexity for its own sake. I died to a minefield, and then on the next go didn’t have a weapon; so some of the mechanics come across a little bit unclear.

      • Goodeye8@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        It’s not a pure extraction shooter, but the general idea (that is kinda a core concept to the genre) is that if you die you lose whatever you took with you when you went outside your shelter. When you die the game respawns you at your shelter and in theory you should take another set of gear you’ve stashed in your shelter to go out again. Alternatively you can go out with nothing and do what is considered “zero to hero” as in you use whatever you find in the wild.

        It’s a learning curve when you’ve never played extraction shooters because it requires you to think about your actions in a way you normally don’t need to think about. In most games you can just take any fight to see how it goes u because it if goes bad you just reload and nothing is lost. But because there’s no reloading in an extraction shooter you have to think about if it’s a fight you’re willing to take, if it’s a good idea to push forward or go back to store what you’ve found. There’s a constant question of risk vs reward.

        I would recommend starting a new game every time you die until you feel comfortable with bringing back gear into your base and then restocking from your stash when you die. There should also be a trader somewhere in the first area who might be of help when you’re looking for specific gear.

    • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      FUNKYHEART: In which the people who wrote that bunny-hopping script for Half-Life 2 speedrunning made a video game, in which they’re also strange cyber demon lesbians.

  • vane@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    For those who don’t know you can see the games people are playing during that event in steamdb

    I played so far.
    Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era - nice demo but the graphics map interest points blends with background and it looks like it’s unbalanced.
    Alchemy Factory - automation game / shop simulator - also nice demo but the controls are a little clunky and hard to get used to.

  • Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    6 days ago

    It’s not Next Fest specific, but the Ball X Pit demo has absolutely grabbed me by the throat and won’t let go.

    I’ve played like 5 hours of just the demo alone and I cannot wait for the full release.

  • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    6·
    6 days ago

    Everwind is fantastic. Fixes just about every complaint I have about Minecraft, and I say that as someone who bought Minecraft back in alpha. There are things that could be improved, but even where I think there’s room for improvement the baseline always seems to be “It’s already better than Minecraft”. For example I really feel like the combat could do with a dodge mechanic and harsher stamina management, but that’s based on comparing it to stuff like Dark Souls. Even in its current state it absolutely clowns on Minecraft’s combat.

    The artstyle is lovely, the building and crafting feels really good, the range of furniture and decorations you can build is massive, and you get to build and fly an airship. And that’s not an afterthought, it’s a core part of the game and feels really, really good.

    • qarbone@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      Maybe I’m suddenly shite at games but parrying feels like happenstance rather than a technique. The block windup is too long for me to react to the quick strike they throw out. It feels like Skyrim combat, from a “battle flow” standpoint.

  • Novamdomum@fedia.io
    3·
    6 days ago

    G-Rebels demo is back. I just love how nimble the ship is in this one. Fully upgraded you can get up to insane speeds with it darting around the cyberpunk style city. Personally I think they should make more of that, so that you can fly through more narrow gaps and maybe even underground tunnels. Also I’ve been watching their Discord for a while and they seem to be really going full steam ahead (no pun intended) with this one. Can’t wait for the full game 🙂

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    RogueJack21.
    Basically Slay the Spire meets Black Jack. Very fun, the UI is great and the animations are super smooth.

    Skate Story.
    Skating game with insanely trippy visuals, great music, runs super smooth even on my aging PC.

    FEED MY MECH.
    Iron Lung meets the Resource management/Task juggling of FNAF. Descend thousands of feet into an abandoned underground colony in your Mech and retrieve what’s left. Beware your surroundings.

    Time Snatcher Handy.
    Roguelike bullet hell where you can freeze time at will, but only for 60 seconds. These seconds serve both as your health and currency, so you gotta be really careful with how you utilize it.