I do love a Steam Next Fest because it’s a look at exactly that—what’s next.
In a world where it’s primarily the big tentpole releases that get their moment in the sun, and shoestring indie budgets don’t allow their creators to carve out any shred of mindshare of their own, we do rely on showcases like Steam’s Next Fest to spotlight what’s around the corner.
If anything jumps out at you from this list, I encourage you to add it to your wishlist. Aside from forking over your hard-earned dollars, clicking that one little button is just about the best thing you can do for these game makers, as it helps with exposure in other ways.
In past years, we’ve caught glimpses at titles that would go on to be critical darlings, including Indika and Mouthwashing, so with any luck somewhere embedded in this list will be the next sleeper hit nobody quite saw coming.
Here are twenty games from Steam Next Fest you’d be wise to wishlist.
Circadial
undercoverworm
In Circadial, you’re invited to partake in an experimental study for the titular pills, a cutting-edge medicine designed to cure your insomnia. It’s an absolute mood piece that, at least throughout the fifteen minutes the demo served up, served up more chills than thrills.
By plunging into the protagonist’s subconscious, as he navigates the dreamscapes of his night terrors, it serves as a compelling look at the very nature of fear and how it can ravage us.
Circadial is listed as coming soon, click here to wishlist and try the demo.
The First Berserker: Khazan
Neople
Perhaps the highest-profile release on this list, The First Berserker: Khazan has a demo that shows off two missions from the final game, as well as letting players carry over their save data to the 1.0 release.
Like all Soulslikes, I’m bloody horrible at it, however, even I cannot deny how superb its art direction looks.
The First Berserker: Khazan is releasing on March 28, 2025. Wishlist and try the demo here.
Mimic Alert
SpoocleMacBoogle
Somewhat riding the coattails of Prop Hunt, I’ve loved the emergence of this casual, spot-the-oddity type genre that has found an audience with streams and popularised by games like Exit 8 and The Cabin Factory.
Mimic Alert feels the closest to the principles of Prop Hunt itself as you’re enlisted to detect and obliterate mimics, alien lifeforms hiding in plain sight as everyday objects. It’s a fun kind of paranoia as you trawl landscapes scouring for even the slightest hints of strange.
Mimic Alert is coming out in 2025, wishlist it here.
No Rest for Lex
RexCorp
As someone who absolutely loves the classic Monkey Island point-and-click adventures, No Rest for Lex is one that leaped off the screen at me. Little did I know, it’s the last chapter in a many-games-long franchise.
So while it sounds like we might be a little out of the loop when it comes to Lex’s metaversal adventure, there’s a lot of nostalgic spirit to be found here, as No Rest for Lex clings to both his reality and a genre’s wonderful history.
No Rest for Lex is coming out in 2025, wishlist it here.
Scarlet Lake
Nocturnal Interactive
Scarlet Lake is yet another in a sea of retro-inspired survival horror games, complete with an eerie setting and the tankiest of tank controls.
Its basic premise feels torn from the playbook of Silent Hill, as you’re lured to a mysterious town after being contacted by your supposedly missing spouse.
The game’s release is to be confirmed, however it can be wishlisted now.
The Void Below
Experience Games
This is one for those with thalassophobia (the fear of large bodies of water, for those playing at home) as you descend into the darkest parts of the ocean to track signals, explore claustrophobic cave systems, and avoid the giant creatures that lurk in the briny deep.
So often we’re armed with the knowledge that danger, in video games at least, will probably attack you front-on. In The Void Below, it can come from literally any angle.
The Void Below is listed as coming soon, click here to wishlist it.
Mountain Boy
MONTE GALLO
Billed as a “non-violent” platformer, Mountain Boy combines challenging, rewarding jumping and level-scaling with a gorgeous art style that calls to mind Sega and Nintendo’s pixel art glory days.
Above all else, it looks like a rather chill and peaceful approach to a taxing platformer, and there’s a playtest currently underway that you can request access to give the game a go.
Mountain Boy is listed as coming soon, wishlist it here.
The Boba Teashop
Mike Ten
This mix of cosy management sim and horror game is rather unexpected, but it absolutely nails it as far as vibes and aesthetics go. As a young upstart boba teashop owner, your sole dream is to grow your business and client base and make a name for yourself.
Unfortunately, things do take a turn for the supernatural and horrifying as visions and apparitions begin to manifest and play on your mind, all the while you’re forced to face each customer with a smile.
The Boba Teashop is set for launch in 2025, wishlist it here.
The Bear – A Story from the World of Gra
Mucks! Games
This is one for anyone looking for something to make you feel.
It’s effectively an interactive bedtime story for grown-ups that’ll have you ruminating on letting go, belonging, as well as all of the other big feelings that have us randomly crying into our pillows of a night.
Better yet, it’s a small forty-minute experience that’s beautifully hand-drawn and melancholic with a gorgeously sad score that’ll likely be the best thing to happen to Kleenex sales since OnlyFans opened its doors.
The Bear is coming soon, too! It’s out March 5, 2025, pre-order or wishlist it here.
Desktop Survivors 98
Brandon Hesslau
Desktop Survivors 98 is an immensely clever twist on the Vampire Survivors formula that’ll be enormously nostalgic for anyone, like me, who grew up in the dial-up era of computers and the internet.
There are so many power-ups and meta references to things from that day and age, that it kept me grinning from ear to ear. The game boots against your actual desktop, manifesting a retro Windows 98 start bar at the bottom, complete with the iconic ‘Begin’ button.
Being able to fire off Solitaire cards, pinballs, and drag Minesweeper mines into a horde’s path using my cursor is such a fun riff on an already relatively basic gameplay concept.
Desktop Survivors 98 is set for release in 2025, wishlist and try the demo here.
Bad Cheese
Simon Lukasik
And I thought Mouse P.I. for Hire might be the biggest flirt with the Mickey Mouse intellectual property this year. Let’s make room for Bad Cheese.
It opens with a tongue-in-cheek reminder that Steamboat Willie, the 1928 animated short on which this is based, has been public domain for a while now.
So just as people are free to make films about a murderous Winnie the Pooh, Simon Lukasik has created one of the most grotesque and disturbing adaptations of Mickey, I mean Willie, I’ve ever seen.
Bad Cheese is coming out in 2025, wishlist and try the demo here.
Am I Nima
HO! Games
Am I Nima is not only a cool palindromic title for a video game, it’s a rad psychological horror game that tasks you with reconstructing some semblance of coherent thought while being held captive in a dim basement, all to prove to your mother that you really are her daughter.
By exploring and observing items, and their context within the unfamiliar world you’re in, you begin to gather building blocks you can combine and piece together to either reveal truths about your situation or contradict what you thought you knew.
It’s a compelling concept delivered through a surprisingly disarming, cartoonish art style that perhaps might aim to undercut how dire the story’s content might be.
Am I Nima is coming soon but can be added to your wishlist here.
Last Report
Monopixel Games
Almost like a more fucked up Firewatch, Last Resort casts you as a park ranger working the night shift at Among Green Trees Park. While burning the midnight oil can be enough to mess with one’s headspace, spying on strange happenings of the station’s monitors and camera reports certainly won’t help.
The game’s atmosphere is tense and suffocating as you’re forced to make tough decisions that might either put fellow rangers at risk or might even unearth a treasure trove of secrets about the park that have long been covered up.
Last Report is said to be coming soon, don’t let that stop you sampling the demo and picking up a shift at the night desk.
Is This Seat Taken?
Poti Poti Studio
Is This Seat Taken? is a wholesome, adorable, little logic puzzle game that places you in charge of the seating plan for several social situations, and it’s up to you to ensure that everyone walks away happy. Whether it’s a ride share, a bus, or a movie theatre, there’ll always be some special request.
Someone might want to sit next to someone with popcorn so they’re able to pinch a kernel, someone might want a moment of shuteye so they’re not interested in being next to kids on a bus so it’s up to you to play matchmaker.
It’s a clever little game with a lovely art style, I’m eager to get into the whole thing and see just how outlandish and challenging these levels can get.
Is This Seat Taken? has a to-be-determined release window, however, you can wishlist and check out its demo here.
The Lightkeeper Is Gone
Zarya Games
Another mood-setting title is The Lightkeeper is Gone. It juxtaposes the monotony of lighthouse upkeep with the unsettling reality that those before you, who left the mantle vacant, disappeared without a trace.
The game is said to be a rather slow-burn adventure with horror undertones that is several hours in length, offers multiple endings, and realistic methods for lighthouse maintenance that’ll ensure, at the very least, you learn something.
Just man your post, or let Neptune strike ye dead.
The Lightkeeper is Gone is set for release in Q1 2025, wishlist it here.
Into The Void
PlayerStudio1
Into the Void is a fast-paced shooter inspired by similar experiences, Post Void and Ultrakill. It looks exhilarating, and its focus on speed certainly paints a picture of the balls-to-the-wall game you’re in for.
Most striking about Into the Void, I feel, is its distinct, Rez-like wireframe design and monochromatic aesthetic that gives the game the sense you’re barreling through the coded inner workings of a fever dream program.
Into the Void, from all reports, is coming soon. Wishlist it and check the demo out here.
The Horror at Highrook
Nullpointer Games
The Horror at Highrook plays more like a tabletop role-playing game than anything else, with its occult, card-driven gameplay serving as a big hook to keep players locked in. Exploring the Ackeron manor and moving your investigation from room to room feels like the Cluedo throwback I didn’t know I wanted.
The game’s like spinning plates as you make the best use of your team’s proficiencies while sidestepping their vices, watching the clock, and, of course, trying to crack the mystery of what happened.
The Horror at Highrook’s release window is yet to be announced, however, you can wishlist it and check the demo out here.
Maintenance Required
MrWolfyer
This one is almost like a horror-tinged Pokemon-like that sees you, an I.T. guru of sorts, trying to fix and debug a computer on which an edutainment game called Edumon is on the fritz.
You’ve got to explore the game’s map, trawl its files, and delete anomalies to restore order to the game.
Palworld gave us Pokemon with guns, Maintenance Required promises to deliver Pokemon that’ll give you the runs.
Wishlist the game here to be alerted about the game’s 2025 release.
Swingularity
Redshift
Swingularity is a tremendously clever, physics-bending puzzle game that effectively has you golfing around the universe.
You combine your Newtonian knowledge of physics with your Woodsian prowess on the clubs to bend balls around planetary orbits, riding the dimpled passenger across space-time to its home.
Unlike others on this list, it’s out March 4, 2025, so it isn’t a “fairway” away, and it’s anything but in a “rough” state.
Clock Ticker
Squiro Games
If there’s one genre of game that really shouldn’t be as hot as it is, it’s the idle clicker. As someone who’s gone through more than one in the Lord of the Click franchise, being able to switch off and just let my brain become soup shouldn’t be celebrated.
Every so often, something peculiar and unique will surface, like Clickolding. Similar to that finger-spending ordeal, Clock Ticker is made more dynamic by some roguelike elements and the horror tinge that leaves you questioning how you’re spending your time.
Clock Ticker is listed as coming soon and can be wishlisted here.
