"Steam Next Fest June 2026 Just Wrapped — 5 Demos That Actually Deserve Your Wishlist"

A Record-Breaking Week of Demos

Steam Next Fest June 2026 closed on June 22 after a week that featured more than 4,300 playable demos — a 66% jump from June 2025's event and the largest Next Fest since the program launched in 2020. Three days later, the Steam Summer Sale opened, meaning the calendar lined up perfectly for demo-then-buy decisions.

Here's the honest truth about navigating an event this size: the demos that surface first on Steam's recommendation algorithm aren't necessarily the best ones. They're the ones that already had momentum going in. Velocity data from the prior February fest showed that games entering with under 2,000 pre-fest wishlists saw almost no algorithmic boost, while "diamond tier" performers — games crossing 10,000 wishlists during the fest — almost universally had over 10,000 wishlists before the event even started.

That means real discovery requires looking past the front page. Here's what actually stood out.

1. Bombanana! — The Surprise #1

A co-op bomb-defusal game in the spirit of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Bombanana! topped the entire event by unique player count, and reportedly surged to a peak of 40,000 concurrent players around the event's close. High-concept, easy to understand, and built for co-op chaos — exactly the kind of premise that spreads through streaming and word of mouth.

2. Onimusha: Way of the Sword

Capcom's samurai action revival, releasing September 25, 2026, was one of the most consistently praised demos of the week. Playing through an early section as a Musashi-inspired protagonist battling Genma monsters, reviewers compared the combat feel to God of War. If you've been waiting for Onimusha's modern comeback, this is the demo to play before the September launch.

3. Valor Mortis

From the team behind Ghostrunner, Valor Mortis is a first-person Souls-like set in an alternate 19th-century France overrun by a zombie virus, casting you as an undead soldier in Napoleon's supernatural army. Early impressions call it the best Souls-like demo of the event — slick combat, genuinely unsettling environments, and a premise distinct enough to stand out in a crowded subgenre.

4. Mistfall Hunter

A Souls-like dungeon extraction title built for co-op, Mistfall Hunter landed at #4 in the most-played rankings and represents a theme that ran through this entire event: dark fantasy, gritty visuals, and co-op design are dominating indie development right now. If you've been looking for something to play with a regular co-op partner, this is worth a demo session.

5. Order of the Sinking Star

From Jonathan Blow, the director behind The Witness, this puzzle game reportedly contains over 1,000 hand-crafted puzzles. Early impressions describe it as The Witness "pumped up to the max." If you enjoyed Blow's prior work, this is a near-automatic wishlist add — his track record on puzzle design is essentially unmatched in the genre.

The Pattern Worth Noticing

Across the top performers, dark fantasy and co-op design were the clear throughlines — Mistfall Hunter and The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu both leaned into atmospheric horror with online co-op, while lighter co-op concepts like Bombanana! and Over the Hill proved there's still a healthy audience for relaxed multiplayer experiences alongside the grittier stuff.

On the technical side, Godot continues gaining ground as an indie engine of choice, climbing from 9.2% to 12.6% of all Next Fest demos this cycle, while Unity and Unreal both saw small dips.

How to Actually Use This List

Most of these demos may still be live on their individual Steam store pages even though the official Next Fest event has closed — check each game's page directly. If a demo grabbed you, wishlist it now rather than waiting. Wishlisting before launch genuinely matters for these games: Steam emails every wishlister the moment a title releases, and that day-one conversion surge determines whether a game gets featured prominently or buried under the platform's daily release volume.

The Backlog Coach Take

A 4,300-demo event is too large for anyone to meaningfully browse without a filter. Trust curated lists like this one over the algorithm's front page, and remember that what's trending isn't always what's best — it's often just what already had an audience walking in.

Connect your Steam account to Backlog Coach to track which of these fits your current gaming schedule once they launch.

Plan Your Backlog →