This stealth platformer in Steam Next Fest combines satisfying Splatoon movement with Dishonored-style stealth missions

Splatoon 3 fans have been “dining” in a unique way in February, as not only did the “Side Order” DLC come out, giving them a roguelike adventure to partake in, but also, there was a “weekend” Splatfest that led to Friday beating out the other days! Yeah, we didn’t see that coming, which is why these Splatfests are so fun to partake in! But if you’re already wondering what the next one will be, you won’t have to wait long! In fact, you can start talking about it right now, as the official Twitter handle for the game dropped the “musically inclined theme” today!

DICE, Criterion, and Ripple Effect Studios are working hard to make the next Battlefield game the success that 2042 wasn't. Publisher Electronic Arts has previously suggested a 2025 release for the next mainline installment.

Who would have thought that 2024 would be the year of the monster-collecting game? While several have tried (and often struggled) to recapture the joys of Pokémon, this year’s Palworld is perhaps the first game that’s ever truly been able to pull it off. Granted, it did that by trading in finely tuned RPG combat for Ark-like survival crafting that makes it an entirely different game, but a win’s a win. While Palworld has broken records on Steam, its early access nature means you can hit its bottom quickly — something fans seem to be struggling with as its player count continues to drop.

Until the sterling evaluations of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth dropped earlier today, the best-reviewed game of 2024 was Balatro - a deck-building poker roguelike that seemed to take over Steam Next Fest.

Palia developer Singularity 6 announced today that the cozy social MMO will finally head to Steam on March 25. As of now Palia is only available via a stand-alone client on PC and Nintendo Switch. The Steam version will also include c ross-progression play and cross-platform availability, allowing friends to play together across the Steam and standalone clients on PC as well as those on Nintendo Switch.

Not to start with a massive spoiler for Act 2 of life, but middle age has few upsides before the nosedive into elderliness begins in earnest. I always figured the greatest perk would be more disposable income to buy sicker toys and gadgets, however, there’s no time to enjoy any of it. That being the case, I’ve modified this supposed mid-life bonus into something I've dubbed Connoisseur Gaming Inception—the pure satisfaction of slyly introducing a younger family member to an unknown gaming genre, just to see if you can watch a new passion take flight.

I respect a game with wild ambition. Declaring your game "the spiritual successor to Freelancer" is bold and ambitious, considering how the spaceship sim is still so beloved after 20 years that our readers voted it your 16th favourite space game of all time. This ambition is wild when the tiny development team is led by someone best known for replacing Skyrim's dragons with Thomas The Tank Engine. So while I'm not much of a spaceship sort, I had to check out the demo for Underspace, which aims to combine Freelancer shoot-o-trading space action with a dash of Lovecraftian horror.

February's Steam Next Fest demo bonanza officially concluded on Monday, and Valve have now revealed the 50 most played games you all tucked into across the week-long event. Ordered by the number of unique players that spent time with them during Next Fest proper (meaning all those early demo plays from earlier in the month haven't been counted), the most popular game of the lot was one that was only formally announced right at the end of January. So congratulations Dungeonborne - your blend of PvPvE dungeon crawling and fantasy skelly monsters clearly struck a chord with this year's Next Festers.

Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters will make its way to Steam on February 19th. It's a version of 1992 strategy classic Star Control 2 that takes advantage of updates from its long-running open source project, and it'll be completely free.

Valve has revealed the 50 most-played demos from 2024's Steam Next Fest, and topping the list is the dungeon crawler RPG Dungeonborne, the self-styled "next-gen" RTS Stormgate, and my personal favorite, the moody survival driving sim set in the lush Pacific Northwest rainforest, Pacific Drive.

When Valve first announced The Steam Game Festival – the event which would eventually become Steam Next Fest – it was an answer to the damage wrought on exhibiting developers by the pandemic. Launched in June 2020, the Festival was billed to developers as "an opportunity to get early feedback from players and build an audience for future releases." That remains true today, even as Next Fest has grown into an industry-spanning event that Valve rolls out multiple times a year – but it's more true for some games than others.

Another Steam Next Fest is over, meaning another collection of indie game demos have vanished into the ether. As ever, with so many options at your fingertips, it can be hard to know what to play, but now that the dust has settled, we've collated our Steam Next Fest coverage to point you towards the games we loved that deserve a spot on your wishlist.