Our 9 Picks From Steam Next Fest
Steam Next Fest is here once again, and that means demos: lots of demos! More demos than you could ever hope to play, in fact – so, as usual, I’ve been doing it for you, and this time I’ve come up with nine picks from this edition, just to annoy those of you who’d rather a nice round ten.
I’ve tried to mix it up a bit and give you some variety, so we’ll be jumping all over the place in terms of genre, so there should be something for everyone here. There are a few games that I’d already known about, but I’ve also been digging into the depths to find some more obscure titles that I’d not heard of before.
So without further ado, and in no particular order, here are our nine picks for February 2026’s Next Fest.
Image: Hatchery Games
Voidling Bound
We’re kicking things off with Voidling Bound from Hatchery Games which epitomises what I think Next Fest should be, in that it’s just a neat-looking game that I had not heard a single thing about until the start of this week. As a high-action, third person shooter, it’s not the sort of thing I usually go in for, but I was drawn in by the slick graphics and the game’s creature collecting mechanic, and honestly, my main takeaway was that it was an awful lot of fun.
The demo gives you access to the first couple of creatures – or voidlings – and a handful of areas to explore. The premise is introduced nicely enough, you’re eased into it, and presented with the game’s key concepts: from hatching eggs to evolving your voidlings, and, obviously, sending them into the world to beat up various baddies. Right now there’s arguably not a huge amount to sink your teeth into (or your beak, I guess) but it gives a good idea of what you might be able to expect from the game when it arrives later this year, on 9 June 2026.
Image: Christoffer Bodegård, Raw Fury
Esoteric Ebb
I’m sure we’ve all wondered what Disco Elysium would look like if it had a fantasy setting, and if instead of a cool pinball wizard as a sidekick you had a weird little goblin fella. Thanks to Esoteric Ebb from Christoffer Bodegård (published by Raw Fury) we needn’t wonder any longer.
When I say it’s like Disco Elysium I really mean that: Bodegard himself calls it a Disco-like, and that even seems to include the length of the game, because this one is going to be meaty — if I tried to cover everything that he's said will be in this one, then I wouldn’t have time for the other seven games on this list. The demo allows you to play through the game’s first day, and sets itself up as an incredibly promising title – whisper it quietly, but if the horrible game about cats doesn’t sweep everything, I think there might be a potential indie game of the year here.
Whether it achieves those heights in the full game remains to be seen, but we won’t need to wait long to find out as Esoteric Ebb’s release date was just announced for this Tuesday. You can carry-over your demo progress from into the main game, so you might as well get started on it right now.
Image: Owlskip Games
The Ratline
I’m cheating a little bit with this next game, because it was arguably already my most anticipated release of 2026. I often see The Ratline from Owlskip Games being described as adjacent to games like The Curse of the Golden Idol or, particularly, The Roottress are Dead – “it’s Roottrees, but with Nazis!” – which, while accurate and probably a good way to draw attention to a worthy game, I do find a little unfair, because its developer Tim Sheinman has been making games like this for ages. Like, since long before either of those games existed.
Historically, a lot of those have had a musical theme to them, but this time he’s opted for the far more trivial matter of, as the name suggests, the Ratlines: the escape routes used by Nazis to flee prosecution after World War II. You play as Saul Perlman, a New York-based private investigator who’s been contacted by an anonymous client to try and track down those fugitives, working through dossiers one at a time to find their locations and pseudonyms.
The demo allows you to play the first three of the game’s cases, and you won’t have to wait long for the rest either, as the full release of The Ratline is on 17 March 2026.
Image: Spritewrench
Duppy Detective Tashia
If you prefer your detective games to be steeped in mysticism (rather than, um… Nazis) then I’ve also got you covered, with Duppy Detective Tashia from Spritewrench.
‘Duppy’ is, as the game helpfully tells you, a word commonly used in various Caribbean islands for a ghost or a spirit, and describes both the victim and the suspects in this murder mystery. What it doesn’t describe, at least at the start of the game, is Tashia herself: one moment she’s chasing after an assailant who appears to have stolen her phone, and the next she finds herself in the mysterious ‘Halfway Market’ which is inhabited by these otherworldly beings.
It’s up to the player to discover whether that means Tashia has also passed along, as well as to help solve the crime that she’s found herself embroiled in. Oh, and to find her phone.
The demo offers a nice quick introduction to the game’s characters and mechanics, and leaves players with a hint that, as bizarre as the situation already is, things mightn’t be exactly as they seem. Duppy Detective Tashia is out later this year.
Image: Nagai Industries
inKONBINI
I know there’s an awful lot of 3D shop-running simulators coming out these days, and I don’t think it’s unfair to describe most of them as ‘heavily inspired by’ TCG Card Shop Simulator, but inKONBINI from Nagai Industries seems to entirely buck that trend.
Firstly, as should be evident, inKONBINI comes with a much more unique aesthetic, aiming to provide a cosy experience set in early-90s Japan. In line with that, the focus here is also entirely different to those games: you’re not the owner of the place, trying to make as much money as possible by shifting your wares, but instead a student working a summer job in her aunt’s shop. You’l still l be restocking shelves and ringing up customers, but those customers aren’t nameless NPCs whose sole purpose is to give you money. Rather, they’re characters who you’ll get to know over the course of the game, providing a narrative-driven experience alongside the simulation aspects that you would expect from this sort of game.
The brief demo introduces you to just one of those customers, but provides a good sample of the vibe you can expect from inKONBINI upon release.
Image: D’Avekki Studio
The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker 2
I’ve gotta be honest, Her Story aside — and I don’t even know if that really counts as one – I have this preconception of FMV (full motion video) games that they’re… pretty goofy. Like, I enjoy them, don’t get me wrong, but usually in a pretentious ‘watching-a-Tommy-Wiseau-movie’ sort of way. I’m not proud of that, even though I do sometimes wonder if a few of them intentionally lean into being… bad. One which I thought had more artistic merit than most, however, was The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker from D’Avekki Studios.
D’Avekki have made a few other FMV games since then, but are now back with its sequel: The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker 2. Much like the first game, you play as a psychiatrist who has taken over from the eponymous Dr Dekker, with patients to attend to and a murder to solve. In the demo you’ll meet the first of six: a young sculptor called Ophelia, and learn about strange occurrences in her life that can only be explained as delusions… right?
The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker 2 is out later this year.
Image: Pipaco Games
Map Map
I’m going to say that Map Map - A Game About Maps from Pipapo Games probably wins the award for the cutest game that I played this Next Fest, as well as providing the world that I most enjoyed being in. No stress, nothing scary, just some uncharted islands with a lot of little mysteries to explore.
The gameplay loop is pretty simple: you arrive on an island with nothing but a map of its outline, and are tasked with using your surroundings to mark various landmarks on that map. Each island comes with its own puzzles, and once you’ve solved all of those it’s onto the next one, along with your crew of quirky characters (all of whom seem very happy to stay on the ship and let you do all the hard work).
The game gets quite tricky quite quickly, but across the handful of islands you’ve got access to in the demo, you’ll already start to unlock various tools to help make that task a little easier. It’s low-stakes: if you make a mistake you can always try again, but there is something incredibly satisfying about hitting your mark on the first attempt. I’m already looking forward to a lot more of that when Map Map comes out in the second quarter of this year.
Image: Cavalier Game Studios
Prime Monster
I almost managed to make a list without a single roguelike deckbuilder sneaking onto it, but Cavalier Game Studios had other ideas for me. Cavalier were responsible for the questionably-named, but underrated, The Sexy Brutale back in 2017 and had seemingly all-but disappeared until literally a week ago, when they announced their new title: Prime Monster.
They’ve gone from arguably ill-advised names to arguably ill-advised themes: I’m not sure there were many people who were desperate for a game based off of the British political system, but I have to say I was surprised at how well it works. I suppose replacing MPs with trolls, vampires and witches (among many others), probably helps with that. The demo sees you take control of Chopper Badstone, the leader of the unruly Orcs-4-U party, and engage in a handful of debates with the aim of winning yourself the next election.
It’s a short but fun demo that’s dripping with satire: it’s already got a lot of polish for a game announced seven days ago, so I’m interested to see how Prime Monster shapes out when it’s released in the first half of this year.
Image: Team Artichoke
Mythmatch
Our final title is Mythmatch from Team Artichoke, which takes Greek mythology (a theme that I’d argue is pretty untapped, Hades aside) and pairs it with merging and match-3 gameplay. I don’t blame you if you’re a little cynical regarding that as a game’s primary mechanic – I was too, as I’d usually associate it with mobile games with predatory monetisation practices, but it didn’t take long for Mythmatch to win me over, not just with its more thoughtful application of those mechanics, but also with its charm.
The game is perhaps more story-oriented than you might originally expect, with a host of mortal and immortal characters for players to interact with, splitting their time between challenging the Gods in Olympus and building a community back down on earth. You get to do quite a lot of that in the demo, which is perhaps the most generous one I played this next fest, allowing you to play the game’s first two, pretty lengthy, chapters. You can carry any progress you make over into the full release, which you won’t have to wait long for, as Mythmatch is out on the 13th of March.
