Steam Next Fest is back and underway with "hundreds" of playable PC demos
And "hours" of developer streams.
If it's demos you want, today's your lucky day; Valve's thrice-yearly Steam Next Fest event is back for another outing, this time featuring "hundreds" of demos across its seven-day duration.
Valve's latest Steam Next Fest is already underway and runs until Monday, 12th February. That means you've got approximately 160 hours to piledrive your way through everything on offer - which, given the magnitude of the task, is probably a literal impossibility at this point. But then we live in a world where someone finished Dark Souls 3 with a banana, so what do I know.
As usual, Valve has tried to make the whole Sisyphean challenge a little less daunting by sorting all those playable demos into easily perusable categories on its Steam Next Fest landing page. And while you're there, you can also take in some of the "hours" of developer livestreams running across the week, as if you didn't already have enough to be getting on with.
Intriguing additions this time around include a demo for the long-awaited and gobsmackingly gorgeous stop-motion-esque adventure Harold Halibut, as well as for construction tinkerer Summerhouse - which comes from one of the developers behind Eurogamer favourite Islanders - plus Synergy, a sci-fi city builder with some striking Moebius-inspired art.
I also have my eye on Star Trucker - which basically looks like American Truck Simulator in space and I couldn't be any more giddy at the prospect - and I know there's also Eurogamer interest in the extremely pretty Ghibli-inspired open-world adventure Europa, and Arco, a globetrotting "tactical action game" with some lovely pixel-y vistas.
You can expect some impressions from us as we start to narrow down our favourites, but in the meantime, please do share some of your own discoveries in the comments below!