Until February 12, Steam Next Fest offers you the chance to check out hundreds of upcoming games. Here are our recommendations!
It's Steam Next Fest time! Once again, you can play hundreds of amazing demos for a week on Steam. These demos are available until February 12, after that almost all of them will be gone from the platform.
With that much choice, it can be tough to know what to pick out. While we strongly encourage exploring the Steam Next Fest homepage and just picking whatever strikes your fancy, we also have some recommendations for games that you should definitely check out.
Pacific Drive
Pacific Drive is a unique survival game and one of the most exciting titles of 2024. You explore the Olympic Exclusion Zone, but not with weapons or any fancy gadgets – it’s just you and your kitted-out station wagon.
The game offers an amazingly immersive and clever take on the survival game. Upgrading the car is extremely deep and satisfying, as is driving around the damn thing (the diagetic cockpit is a true highlight. Uncovering the mystery of the zone is exciting and grippig, especially thanks to the haunting and atmospheric world. A must-play.
Anger Foot
Anger Foot is a brainless, hard bass action extravaganza that is exhilarating from the first to last second. Imagine Hotline Miami as a first-person-shooter, set inside a late-night Adult Swim cartoon, while hard electronic music blasts in the background. Oh, and your foot is your main weapon.
If you’re into the crude and ultra silly humor, Anger Foot is a must-play for any fan of fast-paced action games.
Ultros
Ultros is visually one of the most stunning games I’ve ever seen. Every screen in this new metroidvania is just glowing with psychedelic energy and amazing detail.
Outside of being absolutely gorgeous, Ultros is also a very fun and cool metroidvania, which features some interesting new gameplay mechanics for the genre. I can't wait to dive into the full game.
Earl vs. Mutants
This is my second car-based recommendation today: In Earl vs. Mutants, you drive a heavily armed car through hordes of zombies and it’s a ton of fun.
If you’re into old-school arcade racers but wish they featured tons of zombies and were very bloody, you should absolutely check out this game.
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU
Sticking with metroidvanias, I also want to recommend Tales of Kenzera: ZAU. This is the first game by Surgent Studio, founded by actor Abubakar Salim, known as the actor behind Bayek from Assassin’s Creed: Origins.
The game is reminiscent of this year’s Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and is shaping up to be just as great. It features a unique scenario and a great mix of fun movement and exciting combat. What makes it stick out the most is the beautiful story, centered around the young man Zau, who is going on a journey to try and revive his father.
Indika
Let’s get weird for a second. Indika is one of the strangest titles in 2024 and I love it. It’s a third-person story-focused game, which tells the story of a young nun who is constantly pestered by none other than the devil.
The visual presentation of Indika is just incredible and the strangeness of the scenario and of the overall vibe must be seen to be believed. One of my favorite discoveries during this Next Fest, for sure.
Balatro
Balatro answers the age-old question: What would Poker 2 look like? The game describes itself as “the Poker roguelike” and this pretty much hits the nail on its head.
In the game, players need to reach a certain number of points or their run ends, with each played hand giving you different amounts of points. Of course, things quickly become whacky with new, weird cards that you can add to your deck between rounds. A highly addicting deck builder that I didn’t want to stop playing.
And those are my recommendations! Make sure to go to the Steam Next Fest page to check out all of these games and many more until February 12.