One thing to note is that the three-hour timer will mark the completion of the demo, and players looking to replay it can only do so from the beginning. MORE: Best Turn-Based RPGs On The Nintendo Switch. Highlights Playable demos provide the best opportunity for accurate feedback and response from players, increasing the likelihood of pre-orders if first impressions are good.

Memorable demos offer chunky playtime, introduce primary systems and mechanics, and boast solid technical performance, setting expectations for players. Related The Best Demos from the February Steam Next Fest, Ranked With hundreds of them to choose from, figuring out which are the best demos from the February Steam Next Fest can actually be fairly challenging.

Final Fantasy Platform s PS5. Developer s Square Enix. Metroid Dread. Platform s Switch. Developer s MercurySteam. Genre s Action , Adventure , Metroidvania. Related The 10 Most Underrated Metroidvania Games Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night set the bar pretty high, but there are still plenty of underrated Metroidvania games that can reach it.

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Street Fighter 6 is no different. In Street Fighter 6, players draw from two different gauge meters. The more traditional Super Gauge lets your character pull off their special moves.

Meanwhile, the new Drive Gague lets players do up to five colorful offensive and defensive moves like the Drive Impact counter, the Drive Parry, and more. This game introduces the Modern Control type, which lets players execute special moves like the Hadoken or the Shin Shoryuken with simple button presses.

Steam's Next Fest is happening right now, and it's one of the few opportunities outside in-person events where players can try out a ton of upcoming titles. In the usual fashion for Steam's event, there's a lot of stuff to play during the Next Fest -- so much so that you may miss out on some of the best games available.

If you're just looking to try some of the best games before the event ends at 10 a. PT on February 28, these are some demos you should absolutely try out. Perhaps you'll even be able to play these on your Steam Deck soon enough. Neon White. The survival crafting game genre is in the middle of a renaissance.

Players have been drawn to mainstays like Minecraft and Terreria for well over a decade at this point, but the last couple of months have seen plenty of new contenders enter the market.

Lego Fortnite, Palworld, and Enshrouded all recently launched and became some of the biggest surprise hits in the industry in recent months. Now, Nightingale is launching and aims to ride this genre popularity wave to success. This fantasy survival crafting game from former Bioware developer Aaryn Flynn has been in development for nearly five and a half years at Inflexion Games.

It evolved over time, initially being a cloud-based game before Inflexion split from its former parent company, Improbable, which handed over its stake in the company to Tencent.

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New Releases Upcoming Releases. News & Updates. Recently Updated. Promos Free to Play Demos Early Access · Steam Deck Great on Deck items. PS5 Demo, CUSTOM MECH WARS Prototype Ver. Free, PS5 Demo, Gunhead Demo, Free PS5 Demo, Crow Country Demo, Free PS5 Demo LET'S PLAY Beacon Pines · LET'S PLAY Minute of Islands · LET'S PLAY Backbone

Play upcoming game demos - Duration New Releases Upcoming Releases. News & Updates. Recently Updated. Promos Free to Play Demos Early Access · Steam Deck Great on Deck items. PS5 Demo, CUSTOM MECH WARS Prototype Ver. Free, PS5 Demo, Gunhead Demo, Free PS5 Demo, Crow Country Demo, Free PS5 Demo LET'S PLAY Beacon Pines · LET'S PLAY Minute of Islands · LET'S PLAY Backbone

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Narrow by OS. Narrow by language. Simplified Chinese. Traditional Chinese. Jusant's climbing system is the star of the show here. The controller's two triggers control each one of the boy's hands, and you need to keep switching from one to the other as you climb.

It's an incredibly tactile climbing system and together with the other tools and move sets at your disposal, this tower essentially becomes one thrilling, vertical puzzle. Developer : Fool's Theory Release date : December 5, Try the demo here.

One of the strangest RPGs I've seen in a while is The Thaumaturge, an alt-history detective tale. You play as the titular thaumaturge Wiktor Szulski who possesses the power to discover hidden traits in people and objects. Together with his ghost pal Upyr, the two embark on a journey through 20th-century Warsaw.

In the demo, the two find themselves in a remote Russian mountain village looking for a preacher — who turns out to be Rasputin — as Wiktor hopes this mystic can help him understand his powers.

The demo also showed off Wiktor's Witcher-style thaumaturge senses which he can use to solve ghost crimes, as well as the game's turn-based fight system, one where you have the upper hand by having a powerful invisible ghoul on your team.

The cutscenes drag a little, but The Thaumaturge's demo is a teaser of what's to come this December when the game releases. Developer : Helder Pinto Release date : Try the demo here. You wouldn't be wrong in thinking that Europa's screenshots look like they were taken from a Studio Ghibli movie.

In this whimsical adventure, you play as a robot boy named Zee who has been asked by his creator to travel to the island of Europa, a terraformed paradise with a mysterious past. The demo lets you explore the first area of the game, a lush green meadow with rolling hills and glassy lakes. It's all picture-perfect, made even more delightful with Europa's fluid movement system.

Using your jetpack you can boost, slide, fly, hover, and surf your way through this utopia, exploring ruins for balls of light to keep your pack fully energized.

Together with a handful of platforming puzzles to keep you busy, if you love the laid-back vibe of noodling around a pretty landscape, Europa's got you covered.

Developer : Candleman Games Release date : Try the demo here. In this absurd comedy puzzler, you play through a string of scenarios that feature a person who is exhausted but cannot sleep until they have finished their goal. Each person is too tired to stand up, meaning they must do everything lying down.

The result is each person is only able to slither across the floor, which proves to be both nightmare-inducing, but totally hilarious. A task as simple as 'drink a cup of coffee' can turn into a squirmy slap-stick dance. Playing Exhausted Man is like someone has fused Snake Pass, QWOP, and the bizarre work of Keita Takahashi.

The second level sees a game developer try and make a demo of their game in time for an online event. Hmmm, sound familiar? Developer : Snoozy Kazoo Release date : Try the demo here. Looks like Turnip Boy is up to mischief again.

If committing tax evasion in the first game wasn't enough, his life of crime has led him to rob a bank. Turnip Boy has teamed up with the fearsome Pickled Gang to take on the owner of the Botanical Bank a sleazy mustachioed onion named Stinky.

It's a fast-paced action roguelike where you need to scramble guns blazing into the bank, raiding golden vaults, stealing pocket change, and avoiding incoming fire from veggie swat teams. You can surf the dark web for wacky weapon upgrades and collect accessories to kit Turnip Boy out in the best gear.

It's fun, frantic, and playing as a small turnip unleashing hell with a machine gun will never get old. Developer : Funday Games Release date : Try the demo here.

Funday Games have taken their dwarven folks in a totally different direction with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. Where DRG focuses on four-player co-op FPS, Survivor is a single-player survivor-like auto-shooter — and you know what, it works. In a similar style to last year's indie breakout Vampire Survivor, you're attacked by hordes of underground nasties and you need to make them eat bullets with your devastating array of guns.

Defeat waves of alien bugs to delve deeper into the caves, complete your mission objectives, and grab loot. One smart ability that makes Survivors different from other bullet-hells is that your dwarven miner can burrow into the group, creating handy escape routes if you get overwhelmed by a horde — a game-changing addition to the formula.

Developer : Croteam Release date : November 2, Try the demo here. If you thought the puzzles of the first Talos Principle were mind-bending, this second one is going to blow its predecessor out of the water.

It's been almost a decade since the first game was released, and Croteam hasn't strayed too far from its foundations. The Talos Principle 2 may have the same puzzle design philosophy as the first, but this time there's a much wider scope concerning worldbuilding and story.

It all looks incredibly lavish too. The demo takes place in the opening hour of the game, with a string of fairly straightforward tutorial puzzles. But what's immediately different is the tone, lots of talking about renouncing humanity and not repeating the mistakes of their squishy human predecessors.

The Steam page says that new puzzle abilities involve gravity manipulation and mind transference — so we've got those baffling mechanics to look forward to when this thought-provoking odyssey releases this November. Developer : Sunset visitor Release date : Try the demo here. With the most dramatic opening of any demo on this list, xResist has quickly become a must-play for those looking for a thrilling, sci-fi mystery.

Here's the set-up: humanity has been wiped out by an alien virus, and the only survivor — Iris — has since built a new society entirely of her own clones. You play one of these clones called the Watcher who has the ability to relive human memories.

Suspicious that Iris isn't who she says she is, Watcher explores her memories hoping to find the truth about the alien virus and the one who survived it. The demo takes place in one of these memories and you'll be using your memory-jumping ability to travel forwards and backwards in time.

This is all on the backdrop of an eerie, surreal retro-tech world, one that hangs in the balance of an important revelation. Developer : Shapes and Dreams, BrutalHack Release date : Try the demo here.

This laid-back tile-placing puzzle game is a digital adaptation of the charming board game of the same name. If you aren't familiar with it, Beacon Patrol is a relaxing exploration game where you play as a Coast Guard navigating the North Sea.

To move your little boat you need to place tiles down on the board, creating pathways for your boat to sail through. The drawings on the tiles must make sense in the context of the surrounding tiles: land must meet land and sea to sea.

If you place a tile with a buoy or a lighthouse, you get points. It's straightforward and incredibly charming, not to mention super tactile. Placing your tiles down and watching your little 3D boat mosey across your watery pathways feels oh-so-satisfying.

Plus, Beacon Patrol has an online multiplayer co-op, so friends can join in too. Developer : JimJum Studios Release date : Try the demo here. The cutest game on this list and possibly the entire Next Fest event is Communite a wholesome city-building multiplayer game.

Like other city-building games, you start off with a handful of basic environmental items and, as you place them in the world, you level up and unlock more — starting with some grass, trees, and flowers then progressing to crops, housing, and other terrain types. What makes Communite different though is that you need the help of other players to perform actions, like building a structure or picking fruit from a free.

Helping out each other is as easy as clicking on the tile that needs assistance and then poof, suddenly your pile of wood is now a home thanks to the kindness of strangers.

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