Steam Next Fest is upon us once again, bringing with it a veritable barrage of demos for you to sample. But with thousands of demos available, which ones are worth your time, bearing in mind that a lot of them will disappear next week? We've trawled through tons of demos to make a list of the 10 very best demos for you to try out.
From roguelike city builders to eldritch doctor simulations, there are loads of exciting upcoming indie games to try out. The Next Fest started on Monday, February 25th, and will run until Monday, March 3rd. As previously mentioned, a lot of these demos are time-limited, and will be unavailable when Next Fest ends. While this list can't include every great demo, we've done our best to make sure that this list covers a variety of genres, so there's bound to be something for you.
10. The King is Watching
Developer: Hynohead
Release date: TBC
Try the demo here
A game quite unlike anything I've ever played, The King is Watching meshes city builder, roguelike, and almost idle game mechanics to create a unique experience. You have a grid-based city to build different resource-generating buildings on, such as a wheat field or a market, each of which relies on other resources to build or operate. Here's the thing: your subjects are a bunch of lazy sods who will only work when you're watching them, and to start off with, you can only watch three tiles at once, so you'll need to think carefully about where you place each building to ensure maximum productivity, lest ye perish.
9. Monster Train 2
Developer: Shiny Shoe
Release date: TBC
Try the demo here
Monster Train was, until Balatro released, my favourite deckbuilder, and I'm happy to say that Monster Train 2 looks set to build on the original. The demo has new clans to play with, as well as new cards. It also seems a touch harder than the original to me, but that may just be where I'm out of practice. If you love deckbuilders and want to sample what is likely to be one of the best this year, play the demo and see if it tickles your fancy. Be warned though, the demo is hard to put down, and I had to pry myself away from it.
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown
Developer: Strange Scaffold
Release date: TBC
Try the demo here
If you grew up on TMNT, this turn-based tactics game is a real treat. Brought to us by Strange Scaffold, which seems an odd choice given the often-transgressive nature of their previous games like Life Eater and I Am Your Beast, TMNT: Tactical Takedown is an XCOM-alike with an emphasis on a very radical 90s approach to visual design, with strong mobility mechanics, morphing maps, and stage events; like a car running down your turtle as you fight Foot Clan through the streets. This may have happened to me more than once. It's fun, engaging, and totally tubular, dude!
7. Dagger Directive
Developer: Arcane Alpacas
Release date: TBC
Try the demo here
This title, which might as well be called Felta Dorce, is an incredible throwback to the Delta Force series of yore. The demo throws you into a large map with an array of weaponry (after some compulsory training) and just, wow, frankly. You can pick any loadout that you want – I went in with a sniper rifle and an assault rifle, expecting a fairly easy mission, and I was entirely mistaken. I got made crossing a hillside, and after taking down two enemies with my sidearm, the entire nearby base was on my back. The AI is good enough to be a real challenge, using smoke grenades to cover their advances and the like, but also not smart enough to make you feel powerless. I'm extremely excited to see where this game goes.
6. Is This Seat Taken?
Developer: Poti Poti Studio
Release date: TBC
Try the demo here
A really fabulous and novel puzzle game, Is This Seat Taken? is all about keeping people comfortable. The people, in this case, little blobs in various shapes, each have their own preferences and it's up to you, as the hand of God, to decide where they sit or stand. You do this across a range of different vehicles and venues, ranging from taxis to buses, cinemas to concerts. The character traits are varied and interesting, including people who want to talk to another person, people who want to sleep, partners, parents and children, and many more. The demo isn't too difficult but it can be tricky to, for example, give someone a window seat and allow them to sit next to their child, who wants to sit next to another kid, when the buses only have two seats per side. Cute, fun, and unique, I can ask only one thing: Is Your SSD Taken?
5. Do No Harm
Developer: Darts Games
Release date: March 6, 2025
Try the demo here
Have you ever had aspirations of being a doctor? How about living in Innsmouth? Okay, that second one is less common, but in Do No Harm, you can't have one without the other. You take on the role of the town's new doctor and need to work out what's wrong with everyone, beside the Lovecraftian gribblies that you keep seeing during your work day. Forget evidence-based medicine, too – we're going back to bodily humours, baby! A really neat title that meshes Papers, Please-style observational gameplay with insanity effects and quite gross medical problems, including parasites, everyone's favorite, Do No Harm is well worth a look.
4. Wheel World
Developer: Messhof
Release date: TBC 2025
Try the demo here
Enter a world that is so bike-obsessed, it makes the Netherlands look like it's not even trying. This game from Messhof, the team behind Nidhogg, Nidhogg 2 and Flywrench, puts you into a beautifully cel-shaded world, gives you a rusty bike and a smart aleck skull companion and tasks you with becoming a bike master. The demo hints at a story involving legendary bike parts and a tumultuous and essential event called the Great Shift (like a gear, you see). The demo's pretty short, but the racing is great fun and the world seems to have a really great sense of humour. Pro-tip: my GTA-pilled brain was tapping the right trigger to pedal, but you can just hold it down. Oh, and to make it even more razor-focused to my specific interests, it has a soundtrack from Italians Do It Better, the record label behind bands like Chromatics and Desire.
3. Wanderstop
Developer: Ivy Road
Release date: March 11, 2025
Try the demo here
If you love cozy games, look no further than Wanderstop. A new game from the creator of The Stanley Parable, this is a game about knowing when to stop and take a breather. In this demo, you'll stagger through woods and collapse, exhausted, before being rescued by a very friendly man called Boro, who makes terrible jokes that I still love. The demo effectively gives you a tutorial for the full game, showing you how to sow seeds and make tea, and it's a delight. We all need a reminder now and then to take a break, and Wanderstop's demo is a joyous little slice of life that does just that, with some wonderful dialogue between the grumpy Alta, our protagonist, and the cheerily unflappable Boro.
2. High Seas, High Profits!
Developer: lexy.zip
Release date: March 31, 2025
Try the demo here
Do you like making money? Do you like sailing the seven seas and completing quests? Then, perhaps unsurprisingly, given its title, you'll probably love High Seas, High Profits. The gameplay loop is simple – find goods that one town makes, take it to another that needs them – boom, you've got a profit. But that only scratches the surface – there are quests (for instance, delivering sacks of salt for a wealthy family's wedding, you can build ships to add to your fleet, and keep your ships in good working order. It calls to mind a more user-friendly Port Royale, or a heady mix of the world map from Sid Meier's Pirates! and the feeling of making money in Stonks-9800.
1. Skin Deep
Developer: Blendo Games
Release date: April 30, 2025
Try the demo here
By far and away the funniest game that I've played during Next Fest, Skin Deep is a brilliant immersive sim/FPS from the creator of Thirty Flights of Loving and Quadrilateral Cowboy. You are Nina Pasadena, an insurance policy made flesh, protecting ships from pirates in deep space. Oh, and the crew are all cats. Why? Who knows. Does it matter? Not one bit: it's worth it for the slo-mo "MEOW" they let out when you rescue them.
Yet don't think that this is just an FPS that is funny, it really is an immersive sim as well. In one encounter, I made a pirate sneeze by throwing pepper at him, smashed him into two washing machines, removed his head, which was still very much alive and angry at me (it's how they respawn, I'm not a monster), and flushed it down a trash chute (okay, maybe I am). His friend then spotted me and let off a shot, but I hid under a cabinet, threw soap on the floor to make her trip and gave her the same treatment. It's got so much personality, and I really, really love it.
To see what indie games we've been enjoying in 2025, head on over to our Indie Spotlight series.
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