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Giovanni Colantonio is a video game journalist who has covered the industry for two decades. He was formerly a senior editor at Digital Trends and has contributed to publications like Inverse, Fanbyte, and Hard Drive. His specialty is criticism, as he’s focused on a modern approach to video game reviews that’s focused on the nuances of how interactivity communicates to players. He is currently a member of the New York Video Game Critics Circle.
Steam Next Fest is almost here, and you can already try some free demos today
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I’m the kind of player who loves to dabble in a lot of different games rather than go deep into a select handful every year. The video game medium is just too wide and vibrant to ignore such a strange, diverse array of games. For that reason, nothing gets me more excited than Steam Next Fest every year. The PC demo event is the perfect way to find upcoming curiosities, and you’ll have a chance to do that next week.
Steam Next Fest is returning for its October edition, bringing free demos for countless games to a Steam store near you. The event will run from Oct. 19 to Oct. 26, just before your gaming life gets a little busy in November.
If you’ve never jumped into a Steam Next Fest before, now is the perfect time to start. The event, which takes place a few times a year, sees developers uploading free demos for their upcoming games to Steam. The October edition is the third Next Fest for Steam this year, following similar events in February and June. Judging by those loaded events, the October edition should once again give players a lot of games to sample.
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Every time a Next Fest takes place, we here at Polygon end up finding tons of promising games that stay on our radars. In June, we went hands-on with games like Penguin Colony and Over The Hill, both of which went on to become some of our most anticipated indies of the fall. The February edition got my eyes on Denshattack!, Titanium Court, and Vampire Crawlers, three games that currently sit near the top of my 2026 game of the year list.
What can you expect to play during this year’s event? We know for sure that you’ll be able to try Emberville, which looks like the next great riff on Stardew Valley. You’ll also be able to try the tantalizingly strange Drunken Goddess Reflux, a Russian Roulette drinking game that has amassed over 500,000 wishlists already. I’m personally looking forward to trying We Are So Cooked, a multiplayer game about hiding dead bodies with your friends. Some demos are even available right now, including one for Ace & Aro: Heart-to-Heart and the visually striking Fallgrade.
We’ll be combing through the demos ourselves during the event and shouting out any discoveries we find. If you’re interested in seeing what we find, I’d recommend subscribing to Wishlister, our weekly newsletter dedicated to upcoming Steam games that are worth adding to your wishlist. We’ll be dropping some of our favorite demos in there during the event, so sign up for free if you’d like to get our picks sent straight to your inbox.
Steam Next Fest kicks off on Oct. 19 at 1 p.m. EDT and will run until Oct. 26.