My demo highlights from the Spring-ish 2025 Steam Next Fest

ZDT Studio/Konami
Releasing April 2nd, 2026

Konami's been publishing some weird and random stuff the last couple of years. I don't know what's with this change of heart, but I dig it.

Case in point: Darwin's Paradox! is a goofy and charming adventure platformer about an octopus and the adventure he goes on using all his very octopussian (it's a word, shut up!) abilities. Since Konami's publishing this, the entire demo is Metal Gear Solid themed in a tongue in cheek way that I found hilarious.

The controls take a bit of getting used to, but their clunkiness is by design and part of the challenge. Platformers are one of my favourite genres and I appreciate any willing to try something new with it.

Alt Shift/Dotemu
Releasing Q2, 2026

This is the new game from the devs behind 2019's excellent and under the radar-ish roguelike Crying Suns and expands on its concepts by pairing it with the perfect IP for them. This game is about running from the Cylons and trying to keep your fleet alive while also trying to rescue and assist those you find along the way.

Brutal by design, this will require you to make no-win choices regularly and also manage your fighters carefully and know when to dig into a tough fight and when to turn tail and run. Not everyone is into that formula, but if you are, this looks like it's going to be a really good one.

Tribute Games
Available Now

The original Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has a devoted cult following, but I honestly thought it was just OK. Way too slow and grindy for my taste. Many of the original team behind that game left Ubisoft after its release and formed Tribute Games, whose catalog I enjoy almost in its entirety.

Now the team has gone back to their roots with Scott Pilgrim EX, hot on the heels of the excellent MARVEL Cosmic Invasion. Tribute is making some of the best brawlers on the market right now and this might be their best one yet! Like the original, it takes a lot of inspiration from the NES classic River City Ransom but has a much snappier and more in-depth combat system than the previous Scott Pilgrim game. It looks great, plays great and nails the personality. If you like Scott Pilgrim or this type of brawler, just go get it.

68k Studios/New Blood Interactive
Releasing 2026

It always amazes me the out of left field stuff New Blood releases and how it always works so well, even if their stuff does spend way too long in Early Access many times. This time, they made an old school, tile-based dungeon crawler based on their iconic boomer shooter DUSK. I definitely didn't see this coming.

I used to play a lot of these games back in the day (Eye of the Beholder and Lands of Lore anyone?), but haven't been too interested in most recent ones. When this demo was over, I was actually annoyed I couldn't keep playing. It embodies this genre old school roots, while also moving quickly enough that the pacing doesn't feel bogged down, which is the biggest complaint most modern players have with it. This first time developer also made a compelling dungeon crawler out of a fast-paced first-person shooter. How the Hell...? I don't know, but I went from not knowing about this before the demo to being really excited for it.

Pushka Studios/Assemble Entertainment
Releasing 2026

Since the insane breakout success of Vampire Survivors (which for the record, I think is great), everyone and their dog has been rushing to clone it and capitalize on the new genre it created. Most of them are mediocre to bad, but there have been a few standouts, typically because they bring something different to the table. Grind Survivors is one of those.

The art is excellent and the animations are fluid and fast, which gives it a different feel and pace. There's also a weapon upgrade system that gives you flexibility in how you empower yourself for future runs, rather than just relying on different characters, upgrades within the runs themselves (which this also has) and achievement-based unlocks.

If you don't like the genre in general, this won't convert you, but as someone who is rather burned out on all the clones, this one has my attention.

Sad Cat Studios/Thunderful Publishing
Releasing April 14th, 2026

A lot of people have been comparing this to The Last Night because of the similar art style that takes pixel art to the next level. It was considered revolutionary at the time, but the game never came out and last I checked, the developer was more concerned with posting pretentious drivel on Twitter than with actually getting the thing done. REPLACED has stole its thunder and deservedly so.

This is a platformer adventure in a cyberpunk universe but unlike many of these types of games, this one also has combat. Some like it, some aren't so sure, but I personally dig it because though it was pretty easy (at least in the demo), it mimics the Batman rhythm style and does it really well. I also really liked how there isn't glowing yellow paint everywhere and you're encouraged to analyze the environment to find the routes available to you.

This comes out soon and much like The Drifter, I think this could be one of my most impressive indies of this year.

Tigpan/PoggieB
Releasing 2026

I'm an unapologetic pinhead. I have a real pinball machine in my basement and will try out any video pinball game. While nothing beats the real thing, I like how video pinball allows designers to take creative liberties that pesky things like physics prevent on real world machines.

Pinball With A Gun is one of those games that's clearly going to go in weird directions as you get further in it, but the demo just gives you a tease of that by having elements like oh say, your hand getting pinned to the side of the tables by a board with a nail in it, causing you to jam one of the flippers on or the table altering itself in the middle of games. It's wrapped in analog horror style that glitches and has other random things happen for reasons unexplained.

It's not an incredible pinball game, but I just want to see where it goes.

Chuhai Labs/VITEI Backroom/Humble Games
Releasing 2026

This game is inspired by Star Fox at basically an atomic level and it's unapologetic about it. But Nintendo's not giving us a new Star Fox so hey, bring it on!

I really didn't care for the voice acting in this as it was everything that made the Star Fox sidekicks annoying, but this time with equally annoying voices. That aside, this plays great with snappy controls and combat that was surprisingly challenging in places. On rails shooters are few and far between now, but I still like ones that are paced well and have nice fluidity to them and this seems to. I'm sure the voice acting won't change before launch and that's fine. If I can turn it off, I'm sure I'll love the rest of it.

MythicOwl/Pocketpair Publishing
Releasing 2026

This is the only demo where I'm basing my impressions more on what I hope the final game will have, rather than what I played in the demo itself.

Truckful is a cozy-ish game about making deliveries in your beat up truck in an environment where a ton of weird stuff's going down that I'm guessing will be explained as you go. The driving is simple and enjoyable and there's an upgrade system for your truck and the environments definitely look cool, especially as the strange things start happening. However, the video just involved going back and forth to the same few places, doing in multiple missions what could have been done in two.

Eventually, it finally sent me in a different direction, but when I reached the destination, there was just a giant sinkhole in the ground that just caused me to respawn when I drove into it. I gave up at that point.

I still suggest keeping an eye on this because MythicOwl has clearly put some effort into it and while the demo didn't make the best impression on me, I really got the feeling that it was just the demo's design itself and that the full game will be much more interesting.

Porcelain Fortress
Releasing Into Early Access On October 24th, 2025

Who here remembers the weird-ass Sierra board game Jones In the Fast Lane from back in the day? Anyone? Yeah, I'm guessing you don't but if so, educate yourself because some mad lad got it running in a browser! This game is a niche fandom within niches, but my friends and I loved it because of its unique mechanics and quirky sense of humour.

Porcelain Fortress were clearly also fans because they've made a modern version of that idea, but with way more stuff and an even more twisted sense of humour with an art style that feels like someone mashed up Rick & Morty with Rugrats. They apparently made another game before this in a similar vein that I totally missed.

I only played this against bots, but it will have full local and online play and when I showed it to my friends I played Jones In the Fast Lane with, they were immediately excited. You have to balance a lot of different things in this game, from earning money to bettering yourself to get better jobs, paying bills and a bunch of other things, all within a limited time period. It's frenetic and sometimes stressful, but so much stupid fun.

This is going into Early Access first and I'll be there day one. I can't wait to play this with people!

alevgor/Alawar
Releasing March 10th, 2026

This is a hardcore retro platformer that feels a lot like a more fluid Castlevania with an EGA-style colour palette but also things like parallax scrolling that wasn't possible at the time. It's a really interesting mashup of things that are all of the era, but not things you would have seen together in the same game.

It plays really well and has a lot of traversal mechanics you don't often see, along with solid gunplay. You have to be careful though because there are no checkpoints in the levels and dying means you go back to the start. Hard games have come back in fashion in recent years so this is a great time for something like this and I like anything that takes retro ideas and puts some modern flourishes on them.

Fabraz
Available Now

As I said earlier, platformers are one of my favourite genres, but we don't get a ton of good ones these days so when one comes out, I'm all over it.

Demon Tides takes you through a bunch of different environments and also allows you to upgrade your gear and also your moves as you go. The demo took control from me for overly wordy dialog way too often, but I enjoyed how it played and the great way you can move around the world by changing your form and how much verticality there was.

This is already out and I'm not running to grab it just yet, but it's definitely one I'll end up playing at some point.

Matt Roszak
Releasing On March 16, 2026

I don't have anything against hidden object games, but they've just never been engaging to me. Matt Roszak is a cool indie dev who I interviewed a long time ago on YouTube and I always try out all his stuff so I did the same with this. It kept me glued to it until the end and Matt has since sent me a beta key that I've put over 4 hours into at time of writing.

I'm not sure what about this particular hidden object game grabbed me so much, but I've been really enjoying it. Maybe I've just come around on the genre or maybe Matt just nailed something special with this one, but I definitely suggest checking it out. The art is fantastic, the levels are dense and though it can be challenging, it has a clever hint system that not only are you not punished for using, but actively encouraged to use.

I'll likely be writing a review of it here when it comes out so keep an eye out for that.

Night Sky Dogs
Releases April 27th, 2026

Star Control II is my favourite game of all-time (I have a post coming on that in the next while) and this gives me vibes of that, while also being a more low stakes adventure, where as far as I can tell, there's no combat and no failure state. So it's like, cozy Star Control maybe?

You are a colony ship that ends up in a bad state and has to start seeding a distant galaxy with limited resources. It's part exploration, part event-driven colony sim and it feels like the story is going to go some weird and interesting places.

Grey Alien Games/Night Signal Entertainment
Releasing Q1 2026

The 9os full motion video game era is a weird one that I have a lot of nostalgic fondness for. It was full of objectively terrible games that sold like crazy on the back of new technology, but the ones that knew how to leverage it well results in some real gems.

Forbidden Solitare aims to mimic the era and nails it to a degree I haven't seen before. This could absolutely have come out in 1993 and honestly, I'd love to see them do one of those demakes that makes this work on a real computer of the era, but I'm weird like that.

It's premise is that it's a fictional cointroversial horror adventure game where you play a twisted version of Solitaire to win battles and solve puzzles with as so often is the case, things get weird and mysterious in unexpected ways. It sounds boring, but like games of its time, I wanted to finish the hand I was on so I could see the next cool event.

This grabbed my nostalgia in all the right ways and I'll be there day one for it!

Lavapotion/Coffee Stain Publishing
Release TBA

OK, what if Vampire Survivors but it's made by the devs of the incredible Songs of Conquest? If that made you cock your head, then you know what I'm talking about.

Songs of Conquest is an incredible title in the vein of Heroes of Might & Magic and rather than just another title capitalizing on the trend, Lavapotion has fused ideas from both of these into something wholly unique.

The primary hook is the auto-battler combat (and let me tell you, it doesn't mess about in this one), but in between battles, you take resources you accumulate to build out a town that unlocks new abilities, stronger skills and autonomous companions that follow you into battle. Songs of Conquest fans will immediately go "What a brilliant idea!", exactly as I did.

This is all folded in with Lavapotion's gorgeous 2D/3D hybrid art style and a pace that never gives you long periods of downtime. As I said, it's bloody tough at the start but as you start the fill out the town, you can feel the gains you're making in a tangible way.

Lavapotion's got some real talent on their end and I'm excited to see what they do with this burgeoning genre.

Auroch Digital/Dotemu
Releases March 16th, 2026

Despite being an IP from the 90s that only had one good movie, Starship Troopers brand of over the top violence and hilarious pastiche still endures with people today (I can't imagine why) and we've seen several new games using it come out in recent years. The latest is a modern retro FPS from the team that made the generally excellent Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun.

This leans hard into the Starship Troopers cheese, with delightfully dumb DMV cutscenes and NPC dialogue that feels like it could be out of an Earth Defense Force title. The levels are also aiming to be a lot more open, letting you deal with objectives in whatever order you want. It was surprisingly challenging on the normal difficulty with some truly chaotic battles involving a lot of enemies at once. Your squadmates are more useful than most, but definitely don't make choices as smart as a real human player would, but there sadly is no co-op option.

I'm also not as sold on the retro styling in this as I was in Boltgun. It feels more like this is trying to emulate the style of Build Engine games, where characters are more rotating 2D cutouts and are modelled after low resolution photos. The colours clash and its sometimes hard to tell what's happening and especially, where the very much needed pickups can be located. I think it does need some visual tweaking for sure.

I love retro styled FPS games, but for how they look but also how they play and Starship Troopers is made for this so I'm still quite excited to check it out.

Shiro Games
Releases into Early Access Q2, 2026

The name of this one is definitely loaded because this feels a lot like "What if World of WarCraft, but space?" I don't think Shiro Games (whose history is mostly in strategy titles) intends for this to be anything on that scale and I couldn't fully tell because the demo doesn't have online functionality, but it definitely gives a vibe let's say.

The demo is mostly about flying to different planets, landing on them (all of which is seamless), mining and using what you mine to craft and sell different things for your ship and for quests. It all had a fairly zen space truckin' kind of feel, but I don't know if combat or PvP will potentially become a thing once you're sharing a world with other players. It might just be focused around training and working together, or it might be a more Privateer style universe, where people are competing and conflict management is a big component.

This is one I'll be keeping an eye on, but will probably wait to see how it and its community evolves through Early Access before jumping in fully.

Rake In Grass
Release TBA

It's another old school dungeon crawler, but this time from the small ecclectic Chezhian team who I know best from the Jets'n'Guns games. This also aims to recapture the roots of this genre in a modern setting, using all the same tropes and elements of the old with some gorgeous new art to go with it. There's also much more writing in this than their previous games and it's well done.

Rake In Grass is a lot like 10tons in that they don't stick to just one genre or style, but always end up making something interesting in whatever they choose. They're a uniquely talented group and Underkeep along with Dungeons of DUSK is definitely reigniting my interest in old school dungeon crawling.

flowergarden
Releases 2026

This FPS is just wild. Games like Neon White and MULLET MADJACK reignited this genre of shooters with smaller levels that encourage repetition to get the best scores and times. This has that, along with some very fluid traversal mechanics that require precision and speed, but also give you a lot of options, amplified by the fact that you can attack objectives in multiple orders.

There's clearly some kind of story here that the demo only teases, but you seem to be in some kind of virtual world that borrows heavy from the clean lines and bright colours ideas of games like Wipeout or even Mirror's Edge. There's a lot of flashing patterns and glitch effects that don't always make thigns clear to see, but that's part of the challenge I think.

As a late 40s guy who tries hard to keep his reflexes half-decent, I think this will be a good way to do that. It's one of those games where you're laser focused and tense throughout a run, then just deflate and unclench at the end as the endorphins rush in from setting a new best time. This gets flow down perfectly.

Weappy Studio/THQ Nordic
Release TBA

This is the next game from the studio most known for This Is the Police, but its ambitions are on another level. It's a platformer with hand drawn art that you truly have to see in motion to believe. It's some of the most incredible 2D artwork I've ever seen in a game, no kidding. It's challenging, but not too challenging and has a lot of different environments, as showcased by the fact that this demo alone is 90 minutes long. Clearly, these guys are very confident in what they're making.

While the art is gorgeous, there's also a lot of dark and disturbing imagery here (seriously, the opening cutscenes involves birds and monkeys catching on fire as they try to flee a burning forest). You'll be occasionally interrupted by a child and his mother talking. This appears to be a story that the mother is telling the child, who appears to be hospitalized and under treatment for something. It seems to be a dark fairy tale you're living, with the kids own creative embellishments added on. You can go back and forth between different levels as you acquire new abilities, but this isn't a Metroidvania in the traditional sense as the levels are linear in the end.

A demo this long rarely keeps my attention till the end because if I like it, I just go "I'll play this when it's out" but I played this right through and wanted to keep going. I love platformers and this one's top-shelf, clearly an opus level project from a studio putting their all into it. I'm very excited to see more and especially to learn what the deal with that kid is.