Valve opens Steam Next Fest with over 8,000 game demos
The gist
Valve opened Steam Next Fest on Oct 19 with 8,011 demos, roughly double June's event.
The weeklong free-demo showcase runs to Oct 26, with AI-clone worries on developers' minds.
How it unfolded
- Oct 8, 2026Select outlets got access to a Press Preview at 10 AM PDT, eleven days before opening; only demos already public on Steam were playable.
- Oct 14, 2026Dionous Games and Atropos Studios released a free demo for The Other Side of the Wall ahead of its Next Fest participation.
- Oct 18, 2026Polygon reported that Alliance Arts had decided a few days earlier to pull its Drunken Goddess Reflux demo from the event.