This Steam Next Fest's second-biggest demo so far is like Valorant meets Paper Mario, complete with anime girls

Online shooters like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Valorant collide with anime girls and 2D Paper Mario-esque visuals in Strinova, a unique competitive game with a new demo already dominating the charts this Steam Next Fest.

Strinova offers a one-of-a-kind shooter experience - players can freely swap their characters between 3D and 2D forms, transforming them from anime-esque figures that look as though they were plucked straight out of Genshin Impact into Paper Mario-like people that resemble themed stickers. It's a feature that the genre has certainly never seen before, but it's already proving a popular one with the game's demo currently dominating.

Thanks to this month's Steam Next Fest, fans can get a quick glimpse of the multidimensional shooter ahead of its upcoming release - and boy, are they. Compared to every other demo now available for download during Valve's seasonal event, Strinova's boasts thousands of players and is second only to Delta Force. The charts speak for themselves, and I'd argue they point toward an unsurprisingly successful future for the free-to-play game.

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If you'd like to hop into the fray and find out just why so many people are obsessed with the shooter-meets-anime-meets-origami for yourself, you can test the Steam Next Fest demo now for free. There's no telling when the official public launch will happen just yet, but developers previously cited a potential release window in an interview with Dengeki Online, which falls sometime between October and December 2024.

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After spending years with her head in various fantastical realms' clouds, Anna studied English Literature and then Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh, going on to specialize in narrative design and video game journalism as a writer. She has written for various publications since her postgraduate studies, including Dexerto, Fanbyte, GameSpot, IGN, PCGamesN, and more. When she's not frantically trying to form words into coherent sentences, she's probably daydreaming about becoming a fairy druid and befriending every animal or she's spending a thousand (more) hours traversing the Underdark in Baldur's Gate 3. If you spot her away from her PC, you'll always find Anna with a fantasy book, a handheld video game console of some sort, and a Tamagotchi or two on hand.