10 Coolest Demos from Steam Next Fest June 2026

2 hours ago 1

Published Jun 17, 2026, 2:02 PM EDT

Daniel Trock is a Contributor at DualShockers specializing in PC games, lists, and reviews. He has been writing professionally since 2018 and covering games since 2020, with previous work spanning guides, news, lists, and reviews across multiple publications.

Before joining DualShockers, Daniel contributed guides to GamerJournalist and lists to TheGamer. He currently covers tech topics for SlashGear and BGR. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Marist College and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative and Professional Writing from Western Connecticut State University.

You smell that, kids? That distinct smell of blossoming possibilities, novel gameplay concepts, and the faintest hint of slop? That’s the tell-tale smell of the Steam Next Fest, everyone’s favorite recurring Steam event where developers big and small showcase demos for their new and upcoming games. It’s both a fun way to spend an afternoon and a great way to populate your wishlist with new games for the coming year and beyond.

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Much like Steam’s broader catalog, the Next Fest is jam-packed with demos to try, and it can be a little hard to find something actually worth your time to try out. Obviously, everyone’s taste in games (and how hard you judge books by their covers) will affect which games you opt to try, but for my nonexistent money, these were the ten game demos that were both most interesting in their own right and got me most excited about their full releases, whenever they end up being.

10 Backyard Baseball

The Legend Returns

For those who grew up in the golden age of CD-ROM games for kids, Humongous Entertainment’s Backyard Baseball was an all-timer, a fun and accessible baseball game for all ages. Humongous may be dead and buried, but the Backyard spirit lives on. Literally, in this case, as for the first time in over a decade, Backyard Baseball is making a comeback.

The new Backyard Baseball features a rebuilt baseball system, now rendered in expressive, cartoony 3D, with the full cast of original grade-school sluggers and all your favorite super-powered hits and pitches for wacky, chaotic baseball fun. The demo, unfortunately, only lets you try the homerun derby mode, but that gave me a good idea of how the new ball and bat physics work, not to mention gave me a little taste of playing as the man, the myth, the legend, Pablo “Secret Weapon” Sanchez. Heck yes.

The new Backyard Baseball will be available on PC via Steam, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on July 9, 2026.

9 Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World?!

It’s Just Dumb Enough to Work

Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World gameplay

Developer

Platforms

Release Date

Strange Scaffold

PC, Xbox Series X/S

July 2026

Anyone who’s watched a sufficient amount of recent anime is familiar with the phenomenon of “truck-kun,” a collective name for all the runaway trucks that keep hitting Japanese teenagers and sending them to parallel fantasy worlds. What if, however, instead of following the unlucky isekai’d sucker, we instead follow the emotionally-scarred truck driver? Prepare your stat screens, because Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World.

Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World is kind of like a fusion of Crazy Taxi and a destruction derby, with our hapless driver being guilted across realities by his isekai’d victim to bust up the city as much as possible, sending her more weapons and monsters to slay in the process. The game comes to us from Strange Scaffold, developers of I Am Your Beast and Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, so you know these madlads are good at creating ridiculously addictive game loops and effectively utilizing wild premises.

Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World is slated to release on PC via Steam and Xbox Series X/S on July 29, 2026.

8 Lou’s Lagoon

Everything’s Better in a Seaplane

I’ve never felt particularly inclined to go island-hopping in real life, but I love doing it in video games, especially if you get to do it in some manner of cool vehicle. Lou’s Lagoon has that down to a tee, including a seaplane that reminds me more than a bit of the one from Talespin.

Lou’s Lagoon has you visiting the titular tropical island locale to visit your titular Uncle Lou, only to find him missing after a major storm. Using his special material-gathering doohicky and a customizable seaplane, you can hop across the islands of the archipelago, harvesting wood, stone, and steel to repair the affected communities, upgrade your gear, and figure out where the heck Uncle Lou went. It’s a cozy, open-world exploration game about putting things back together one step at a time, not to mention freely cruising the skies in that awesome plane.

Lou’s Lagoon will take off on August 27, 2026 for PC via Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

7 Onimusha: Way of the Sword

Chan-Chan-Bara

Onimusha: Way of the Sword

I’m a little ashamed to admit that I missed the boat on Onimusha pretty much completely growing up. I wasn’t old or wise enough to appreciate Resident Evil at the time, so obviously, I wasn’t going to get anything out of a samurai game built in a similar fashion. Onimusha’s been dormant for a good while since, but it’s finally taking the stage again with Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and in a big way.

Way of the Sword takes some cues from the modern Resident Evil games, switching to an over-the-shoulder view with more emphasis on pitched combat. Obviously, we’re using a sword rather than a gun here, but our hero, Miyamoto Musashi, certainly knows how to sling a blade with style. The game uses a parry-and-response system that is both remarkably in-depth and surprisingly flowy and accessible, kind of like a less punishing Sekiro. It’s less about being hideously overmatched by stronger opponents and more about meeting them on equal terms, then slicing them in half with giant crescent slashes.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword will launch on PC via Steam, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and Nintendo Switch 2 on September 25, 2026.

6 Valor Mortis

Aggressively French

When you’re looking for a good jumping-off theme for an original Soulslike, for reasons beyond my understanding, Revolutionary-era France is a consistent choice. We saw it in Steelrising, we saw it in Lies of P, and we’re seeing it again with Valor Mortis, though with a little more emphasis on the “Revolutionary-era” bit.

Valor Mortis plays like a combination of Souls and BioShock, with a first-person view mixed with swappable weapons and powers and a heavy emphasis on parrying and dodging a la Bloodborne. Our hero, William, was a soldier of Napoleon Bonaparte who was killed in action, only to be suddenly revived in the midst of a twisted battlefield, where both revenants and automatons are running rampant. The demo played coy with story details, as most Soulslikes do, though Napoleon was regularly giving me telepathic encouragement, so I’m interested to see what the deal with that is.

Valor Mortis is set to launch on October 13, 2026 for PC via Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. It was originally going to launch in September, but the devs decided trying to slide into that packed month was a bad idea.

5 Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2

It Still Smells Like Heresy in Here

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun was a surprise hit from 2023, a high-speed boomer shooter steeped in the delightfully ultra-violent iconography of the Warhammer franchise. The fun thing about Warhammer, though, is that no matter how much ultraviolence you get from it, it always has more to offer, specifically in the form of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2.

Boltgun 2 builds upon the foundation of its predecessor; it’s another boomer shooter, obviously, but with a larger arsenal of weapons and techniques on offer. For starters, in addition to the usual Space Marine wielding a Boltgun and chainsword, you can also play as a Sister of Battle, cutting through foes with an electrified broadsword and unique weapons like a compact stake-launcher. The campaign features new locales and enemies to eviscerate, including plenty of gross fellows sent forth by good ol’ Papa Nurgle.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 is slated to launch some time in 2026 for PC via Steam, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5.

4 Arcane Eats

A Kitchen is a Battlefield

Running a kitchen is like stacking a deck of cards: you need the best equipment, the finest ingredients, and an all-star staff. Since it’s so much like playing cards anyway, you might as well play it like a roguelike deckbuilder, with your hungry customers as your de-facto opponents. Open up the kitchen, it’s time to cook up some Arcane Eats.

Rather than a traditional head-to-head card battler like Hearthstone, Arcane Eats is all about using your deck of ingredients, tools, and preparation techniques to carefully assemble the most tantalizing meals possible for your hungry fantasy-folk clientele. Different customers have different standards and expectations, so you need to tailor your deck to cater to as many different palates as possible, picking up new cards along the way. The better you do, the more regular customers you’ll start to receive, though you may draw the attention of some powerful magical beings as well.

Arcane Eats is slated to release some time in 2026 for PC via Steam.

3 ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs

Meditative Detail Work

Developer

Platforms

Release Date

Mandragora

2026

I’ve dabbled a bit in fixing small electronics in my time, mostly cleaning out battery corrosion in old toys. So long as you remember to wear goggles and gloves, it’s actually a pretty relaxing, meditative experience. I’m not nearly good enough at it to do it professionally, but if I was, I’d love to have a shop like the one in ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs.

This game has you running a hole-in-the-wall electronics repair shop in early-2000s Tokyo, receiving both in-person commissions for various device repairs and accepting shipped jobs online. Each device needs to be methodically disassembled and either have its components cleaned and serviced or replaced entirely using junked parts from other gadgets you buy. Depending on how well you fix certain devices and interact with their owners, you might just stumble onto a major conspiracy in the back alleys of the city.

ReStory will be available some time in 2026 on PC via Steam.

2 Trees Hate You

I Always Knew It

Developer

Platforms

Release Date

Tykenn

2026

Rage games are a hot ticket these days because they make for great streaming fodder, though they’ve been around as far back as the mid-2000s with games like I Wanna be the Guy. It was that game specifically that came to mind while I was getting repeatedly shot and pummeled in Trees Hate You.

In Trees Hate You, all the trees in the forest hate you. Don’t bother asking why, you won’t get an answer. All you need to know is that they don’t want to let you go home, and will go to any lengths to stop you, including smacking you off the road, shooting you with pistols, and other assorted bullying methods. It’s a game made to be streamed and shared, because every possible turn is laden with schmuck bait that will send you hurtling back to the last checkpoint. It’s going to hurt, and you’re going to like it.

Trees Hate You will be making our lives miserable some time in 2026 for PC via Steam.

1 Slayblade

Let It Rip

Developer

Platforms

Release Date

Henry's House, Oscar Brittain

TBA

I had a brief, yet poignant Beyblade phase in my youth. My Master Draciel was completely unstoppable, thank you very much. Despite the series’ marketability, though, it never made much of a splash in the gaming scene. Well, if Beyblade won’t do it, then Slayblade will step up instead.

Slayblade is a roguelite battle top game where you assemble the ultimate battle top and battle punks in the streets, betting your lunch money in the process to build up cash and ultimately buy your way into the major tournaments. There are a bunch of different parts to mix and match, and if you’re not making the cash you want in regular stadium battles, you can participate in illegal nighttime battles with wild stage modifiers, as well as pick up side jobs like using your top to mow a lawn. The game purposefully doesn’t put any particular emphasis on story; it’s Slaybladin’ for its own sake.

No release window for Slayblade at the time of writing, but presumably, it’ll be available on PC via Steam.