Steam Next Fest June 2026 is live with thousands of demos

highly recommend the divine frequency demo, imo it's something really special. dark, fuzzy, and intense uzdoom based dungeon crawling. super satisfying gunplay.

Quoting: Petethegoathighly recommend the divine frequency demo, imo it's something really special. dark, fuzzy, and intense uzdoom based dungeon crawling. super satisfying gunplay.

put links my man!

[Divine Frequency](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2548880/Divine_Frequency/)

Holy shitballs SO MANY DEMOS ... whew a little overwhelming.

That Casualties Unknown looks AWESOME. Love weird stuff like that.

For me, here's a small list of things that look pretty awesome from a quick peek at the store front for the fest:

[Ghostpunk](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4378490/Ghostpunk/) - Investigate paranormal cases using a 1990s CRT terminal. Analyze photos. Decode audio. Interrogate suspects and decide what’s real

[Holonoptic](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4305470/Holonoptic/) - economic simulation and party-based RPG into a story-rich corporate alpine cyberpunk.

[Enarian Online](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4218510/Enarian_Online/) - text based ARPG experience that fuses classic adventure with modern action-packed gameplay

[Soul Diagnosis](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4657690/Soul_Diagnosis/) - dialogue-rich isometric cRPG where you are haunted by your mistakes. Navigate a labyrinthine hospital conspiracy, engage in fisticuffs with inanimate objects, and leverage your fractured psyche to survive.

If you're as addicted to FromSoftware games as I am, I HIGHLY recommend the demo for Mortal Shell 2. It may be the best non-FromSoft Souls-Like game I've ever played.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2584270/Mortal_Shell_II/

Anyone have a link to SteamDB showing only demos without AI like last year? The official store listing is getting unusable at this point.

Quoting: SalvatosAnyone have a link to SteamDB showing only demos without AI like last year? The official store listing is getting unusable at this point.

https://steamdb.info/instantsearch/?refinementList%5Btags%5D%5B0%5D=-AI%20Content%20Disclosed&refinementList%5BappType%5D%5B0%5D=Demo

Thanks Liam. I seem to recall that you liked Roadwarden, so you may want to check out South of the March. Very different art style, more old school and gritty, but not too dissimilar in terms of gameplay. I enjoyed the writing and tense atmosphere.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4628420/South_of_the_March/

Quoting: Liam Squires-Hand

Quoting: SalvatosAnyone have a link to SteamDB showing only demos without AI like last year? The official store listing is getting unusable at this point.

https://steamdb.info/instantsearch/?refinementList%5Btags%5D%5B0%5D=-AI%20Content%20Disclosed&refinementList%5BappType%5D%5B0%5D=Demo

omg what irony.

that listing page which searches for games that don't have any ai in them, is itself powered by ai. It seems you cannot even escape it when you are actively trying to. 😫

Quoting: Jarmer

Quoting: Liam Squires-Hand

Quoting: SalvatosAnyone have a link to SteamDB showing only demos without AI like last year? The official store listing is getting unusable at this point.

https://steamdb.info/instantsearch/?refinementList%5Btags%5D%5B0%5D=-AI%20Content%20Disclosed&refinementList%5BappType%5D%5B0%5D=Demo

omg what irony.

that listing page which searches for games that don't have any ai in them, is itself powered by ai. It seems you cannot even escape it when you are actively trying to. 😫

Huh, you must be seeing something I'm not. I've not heard of SteamDB using any AI?

Quoting: Liam Squires-Hand

Quoting: Jarmer

Quoting: Liam Squires-Hand

Quoting: SalvatosAnyone have a link to SteamDB showing only demos without AI like last year? The official store listing is getting unusable at this point.

https://steamdb.info/instantsearch/?refinementList%5Btags%5D%5B0%5D=-AI%20Content%20Disclosed&refinementList%5BappType%5D%5B0%5D=Demo

omg what irony.

that listing page which searches for games that don't have any ai in them, is itself powered by ai. It seems you cannot even escape it when you are actively trying to. 😫

Huh, you must be seeing something I'm not. I've not heard of SteamDB using any AI?

that steamdb search and filter page is powered by algolia (top right). When you click on their logo, it takes you here https://www.algolia.com/ which says:

"Agentic. Generative. Search. One AI retrieval platform to power them all"

They used algolia for quite a long time before the AI hype, I can't see how any AI would help with their search filtering because it's basic stuff.

Well, let's do this.

Orc Incremental (Proton) - Pretty decent incremental auto-battler that seems to take some RTS inspiration. Simple premise pulled off pretty well overall. It does get a bit old after a while, although I haven't tried the "Trials" mode.

Chonky Cat (Proton) - Very clearly a meme game, where you play as an extremely fat cat who is actually a normal cat skin from an asset store stretched over a large body, chasing a variety of birds and squirrels and such to instantly eat them. I guess it's fun for a bit, but doesn't seem to have had a lot of effort put into it. Probably good for streaming if you're into that.

Worlds Upon the Wind (Native) - Historical Japanese art themed roguelike deckbuilder. No combat in this one, the cards are used to accomplish tasks in rebuilding a shattered world. Not fast moving by any means, but very pretty and it seems like something a person could sink a good amount of time into. Card mechanics seem interesting, where they can be used either to supply required glyphs for tasks, or to be used for drawing more cards and similar tasks. I, for one, found it quite absorbing.

Industronaut (Proton) - Crashed astronaut survival/crafting game. Clearly going for the Subnautica/Planet Crafter vibe, but a bit more industrial/automated. Not a fan of the UI at all, and the process of making things feels very awkward. There are better entries in this genre, by a long shot.

Lone Voyage (Proton) - Exploration game where you're the sole survivor of an attack by an alien "swarm" which has destroyed everyone else. You have a little dude in a spaceship and no explanation of how to work anything. You've got a mining laser and apparently an auto cannon that I never figured out how to use. Or if it's actually there or just listed in your gear. Very poorly/not at all explained mechanics, pretty much immediate and unavoidable death when the swarm shows up or your engine inexplicably goes critical. Not well designed at all, recommend not bothering.

Another round, bartender!

Between Adventures Idle (Proton) - Fantasy-themed idle crafting game, seems to basically be a more simplified version of Melvor Idle. Not exactly the same by any means, but so far it seems decent enough. I had to force the Steam Play version because the Linux runtime wasn't doing it, but after that just worked out of the box. Worth a look if you like spreadsheet-y games.

Rogue Slime (Proton) - Really fun turn-based adventure game with a heroic slime. Combat is reminiscent of Dicey Dungeons, where your gear has to fit into a grid, and then you use it by applying energy tokens of the appropriate colours. So your sword might require red and green, and if you have those you attack. Wide variety of weapons and stuff you can pick up along the way to tune your options. Enjoy this one a lot.

Sol One (Proton) - A game that asks the eternal question, "What if Planet Crafter was boring?" Barely pre-alpha, this is supposedly a realistic Mars survival crafting sim that tries to get the science right, and immediately gives you a building gun and a drill to get iron and copper easily out of surface rocks. No intructions at all, no settings, not even a save function. And most egregious of all, a first person experience with no FOV slider. Terrible experience, don't bother.

Bubble & Squeak (Native) - Pretty much a more chill, slightly more cartoony version of the Kingdom games. Side scrolling "castle" defense where you're a witch protecting her hut from goblins. Harvest moss, wood, and the essence left behind from defeated gobbos to make moss golems to fight and harvest for you. It's still pretty barebones, but the foundation is there. Nothing too stellar, but a solid effort.

Moss: The Forgotten Relic (Proton) - 3D action-puzzler about a young mouse with a sword and magic navigating a mouse-scaled kingdom gone to ruin, in what is clearly an even older post-human habitation. Controls very well, but aiming the magic with the right stick is kind of counter-intuitive since so many games use that for the camera. So I keep wanting to look around with it. Otherwise, a solid game and pretty fun.

Not really related, but Steam Machine benchmarks are popping in many places. Could it mean that the Steam Machine launch is really close? Any truth into this?

One such example (the first I found, in fact):
https://www.techpowerup.com/350049/steam-machine-performance-benchmark-leak-signals-approaching-launch

Edit: Ok. For the sake of clarity, I just realized it's the Geekbench benchmark that's getting relayed at many places. This said, it's still a fresh benchmark.

Last edited by Mohandevir on 17 Jun 2026 at 3:35 pm UTC

Oh! Oh! SteamOS 3.8.10 released to all... Is that the smell of the Steam Machines (maybe not)? 😁

Last edited by Mohandevir on 18 Jun 2026 at 1:34 am UTC

A few more, I guess.

Type or Die (Proton) - Typing game with cool medieval style. A bit awkward since you're hitting enter after every word rather than space, which can really trip you up if there's a long series of them. Pretty fast paced and gets quite tense after a while, although it's hard to tell if some buffs actually stack or not. Movement being out of your control put me off a little, but it's not too bad.

Toem 2 (Native) - Charming little black and white town exploration game, which has you taking photos of a wide variety of things. Couple clever little wrinkles on the camera mechanic too. Plays very smoothly and none of the puzzles, if you can really call them that, are especially difficult. Kinda got lost in the ambiance, if we're being honest. The full game is probably going to be full of music to collect and things to keep track of. Also hats.

Locktale (Native) - Fairy tale game told in ciphers of various sorts. Not too tough, at least to start out, but I could see how the later ones could get diabolical. Each time you solve one, it links to a Wikipedia page about the history of each one, which is a nice touch.

Little Herbal Baker (Proton) - Game sells itself as a cozy bakery sim, but then has everyone expecting you to explore the forest and give you a pickaxe. Why does a baker need this stuff? Character portraits are good, but in-world art seems awfully stiff. Controls very clunky and there are a lot of rough edges in the mechanics. The bread baking minigame, arguably the reason you're there as a baker, is extremely unintuitive and I never did figure it out. Give it a pass for now, maybe it'll get better in time.

Island Keeper (Proton) - First person game with no FOV settings, bad bad bad! Devs go to jail one thousand years! In any case, it's a game about a robot tasked with cleaning up garbage and pollution, recycling it, and crafting equipment to re-establish nature. Extremely janky and fiddly controls, which is especially annoying given you start by picking up the trash piece by piece by hand. Small trash is very hard to target. The inventory and crafting systems are also awkward. Runs well for an Unreal game, but that's the best I can say about it.