Indie devs say Steam Next Fest is a massive win for finding early success: "Wishlists go brrrr"

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Everyone wins in Steam Next Fest

Mike and the Witch's Mountain
(Image credit: Chibig)

Indie developers are enjoying a surge of early success this week, all thanks to this year's Steam Next Fest, which offers a ton of free demos for upcoming indie games.

I've long said that covering indie games is my favorite part of the job here at GamesRadar+, and so it's been a delightful week shining a light on games that aren't getting nearly enough attention. Personally, this brutally difficult Dark Souls and Princess Mononoke-inspired boss rush horror game and this unimaginably dark narrative-driven space spookfest are my favorite demos so far, but GamesRadar's Hope Bellingham is finding oodles of warmth in decidedly more cozy demos, while Hirun Cryer is chilling out with this Studio Ghibli and Wind Waker-influenced sandbox adventure.

Point is, we're all finding new indie obsessions we might've never come across without Steam Next Fest, and naturally, the studios involved are loving the exposure. In a lovely change of pace, my Twitter feed has been flooded with encouraging posts from indie developers celebrating the attention.

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One very measurable metric of early enthusiasm for an indie game is the amount of people wishlisting it on Steam, and in some cases, results are far exceeding developers' "lofty" expectations.

Other indie developers are celebrating the event and its potential for outreach more generally. In fact, indie marketer and long-time enthusiast Ryan Brown called the showcase "probably the single most important pre-launch campaign beat for an indie title now."

It's genuinely hard to think of a single considerable downside to Steam Next Fest. We get free demos, developers get hands on their games, Valve naturally benefits from the engagement, and even us journalists get to break up our daily routines with some fun indie action. Truly a win-win-win, at least until the event ends on Monday, February 12.

For more, here are some upcoming indie games we have on our games radar.

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick
Staff Writer

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.