It’s always fun to be able to try out an upcoming game before its release, and that’s exactly what Steam Next Fest aims to do. Running through February 12, the celebration highlights thousands of demos, allowing you to get your hands on some of the most anticipated games while discovering new ones to add to your wishlist.
Going through the list can be a daunting task, so here’s six highlights that I’ve tried out and would highly recommend.
I went into this one thinking it would play like a neon horror version of Hitman, but instead it was something more interesting and focused. In Children of the Sun, you play a masked sniper enacting vengeance on a cult that ruined her life. Each level presents you with an area populated by a group of cultists. You circle the perimeter to get the best angle, then take your shot. Once the bullet hits its target, you get the opportunity to redirect the bullet as though you shot from that location. To succeed, you’ll need to take out all the targets with this single magic bullet without breaking the chain. As the demo progressed, there were various abilities added to redirect the bullet in flight, as well as fully retargeting it after doing certain actions to charge a meter.
So instead of focusing on stealth like Hitman, it becomes more like a violent puzzle akin to a sniper Superhot. There’s clever decisions to make about the order of your kills, as well as environmental elements that can be used to explode multiple enemies, or just extend your chain. It’s also aggressively stylish, with a striking color palette and over the top brutal death cams. I’m very curious to see how the gameplay evolves over the course of the full game, but what I got to play so far is an incredibly unique and engaging experience.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Silent Hill recently, so I was glad to see that Hollowbody had a new demo released for Steam Next Fest. Taking strong inspiration from the PS2 era of the series, Hollowbody transports the formula to the dystopian sci-fi genre, casting you as a woman who has crash landed in a long abandoned, decaying British city. It’s got all the best hallmarks of the era: mix of dynamic and fixed camera angles, great lighting, logic puzzles, and resource management.
The voice-acted and stylish cutscenes do a great job of setting the mood, allowing for the dark atmosphere to shine, even before actual danger is introduced. In the 30 minute demo, I got a taste of the combat and one very clever puzzle that required more than just finding a key and bringing it to the correct lock, so I’m feeling optimistic that this could end up being a neat little throwback survival horror title that carries on the legacy of the genre greats.
There’s always one absolutely bonkers demo that grabs me not with its gameplay, but with its utterly unique style. This time that game is Mouthwashing, a first person horror game with low-poly graphics that follows the crew of a stranded spaceship. As presented in the demo, the gameplay mostly boils down to adventure game-style collection and conversation, but the story within is extremely bizarre.
The narrative skips around in time, moving back and forth between before and after the crash, with a tone that oscillates effortlessly between the horror and humor of corporate space travel. It’s hard for me to get a handle on what the full game will bring, but with a demo this out there, I’ll definitely give it a shot when it’s released.
There’s nothing quite like the thrill of going through a weird zone. Pacific Drive plays out like a combination of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Jalopy, forcing you to scrounge up what you can in a mysterious landscape to fix up your beat up car in hopes of escaping. I’m not usually one to enjoy scavenging and crafting mechanics, but the area you’re inhabiting is fascinating enough that I found great joy in the rhythm of exploration. This is the type of game where you’re manually doing everything in your car, from turning the ignition to putting it in park, but there was something very satisfying about the process itself.
On one run out into the zone, I was driving between small trailers looking for parts when what looked like a strange floating pile of scrap moved in my direction. Before I could figure out how to react, it attached itself to me with a big cable and started dragging me away. In my struggle to get away, I wasted some gas and needed to pull over after escaping to get my fuel can from the trunk and fill up. It’s weird moments like that that make me interested to see Pacific Drive’s version of the classic anomalous zone, especially with my trusty ride in tow.
In Demon Spore, you’re trying to escape from the fleshy abominations that have overrun your genetic research lab, relying only on found tools to make your way to the exit. It’s a desperate rogue-like that has you doing encounters room by room, managing your resources and fighting back with items scattered about. While you can hold two weapons (one of which is a fire extinguisher used for freezing), ammo is very limited, forcing you to rely on throwing environmental objects like computer monitors and vials of acid at the strange creatures in hopes of survival.
It’s extremely challenging, but immensely addictive, mixing the horror of The Thing with the excitement of a roguelike shooter. There’s a thrill of entering a room and assessing the situation, spotting all monsters and weapons quickly so you can have a fighting chance. I spent way more time than I intended doing just ‘one more run,’ which speaks to the fun I was having. It will be interesting to see the structure of the full game, but even if it’s mostly just what’s in the demo, it’s a guaranteed good time.
It’s hard to capture in writing how overwhelming and exhilarating Mullet Mad Jack is. It’s a lightning-fast old-school shooter where you’re constantly on the verge of sensory overload. The game takes place in 2090, and the world is ruled by super rich AI robots called Robillionaires. You need to ascend a building floor by floor, but you only have 10 seconds of life left to live. Every time you kill an enemy, you regain three seconds, leading you on a violent mad dash to murder your way through floors as fast as possible to stay alive. As you progress, you’ll pick up roguelike upgrades that will help customize your character into a walking death machine.
If that doesn’t sound over the top enough, Mullet Mad Jack also has an extremely vibrant neon cartoon style, complete with anime-inspired cutscenes brimming with energy. It’s all just on the border of being way too much, but it rides that line with expert effect. Continuing to try over and over again feels like plugging quarters into my favorite arcade cabinet, and I can’t wait for the opportunity to do that in the full game.
What demos do you recommend from this week’s Steam Next Fest? Sound off in the comments below!
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