Publisher and developer Valve has announced the launch of a new iteration of the traditionally large-scale demo festival called “Games to Be” (Steam Next Fest) on its digital distribution service Steam.
Image source: Steam
As promised, the newest version of Games Will Be will run from February 24 to March 3 (ending at 21:00 Moscow time). The festival offers demos of hundreds of potential gaming hits of the near future.
Valve is positioning “Games to Be” as a “celebration of future new products”: demo versions of yet-to-be-released games from debutants and industry veterans sit side by side with broadcasts and conversations with developers.
To help you navigate the festival, you can browse games by genre, features (main tags), theme, and your preferences (in addition to a list of recommendations), as well as a rating of popular demos.
As part of the February “Games to Be” event, demo versions of games of various genres are available, some of which can be seen in the trailer from Valve dedicated to the start of the festival. We have collected ten notable projects:
- Old-school combat racing arcade game Fumes with vintage graphics;
- A cozy game with a trick Wanderstop from the team behind The Stanley Parable;
- Ironic retrofuturistic space survival game Breathedge 2;
- Sci-fi philosophical survival The Alters about creating alternate versions of yourself;
- «The revolutionary construction simulator RoadCraft from the creators of SnowRunner and Expeditions: A MudRunner Game;
- A cycling adventure about saving the Wheel World universe from the developers of Nidhogg;
- Inspired by the first Silent Hill and Resident Evil, the horror Post Trauma about a train driver in a surreal world;
- Squirreled Away is an adventure game about the life of a smart squirrel in a busy city park;
- Despelote is a heartfelt adventure about childhood and the football fever that engulfs an entire country;
- Non-linear sci-fi shooter Skin Deep with immersive sim elements.
Some demos in the current iteration of Games to Be were released before the festival even started (for example, Tempest Rising, the Gothic remake, or The Talos Principle: Reawakened), but are still considered participants.
The next festival after February’s “Games Will Be” will take place from June 9 to 16. The schedule of official Steam events for the rest of 2025 can be found in a recent post.