It’s one of my favorite times of the year – when game developers come out like Santa’s elves and show off what they’ve been working on in their hidden little workshops. That’s right, it’s time for another Steam Next Fest, and for the February Steam Next Fest of 2026, there are over 3,500 demos for people to try.
With all those demos to try, no one can play them all. But to help you out I’ve spent the last few weeks trying a bunch of them, and I’m here to point out 10 of the demos you really should check out. Some of them are popular, some of them are obscure, and I’ve tried to capture a variety of genres here so that there’s something for everyone.
With all of that here are ten of the best and most interesting February 2026 Steam Next Fest Demos.
Vampire Crawlers
There were two dungeon crawlers in this Next Fest that fought for space in this top 10, and Vampire Crawlers beat out the boomer shooter inspired Dungeons of Dusk by New Blood in a messy match. Vampire Crawlers’s sheer energy and style plays near perfectly mixing dungeon crawlers, roguelite deckbuilding, and the Vampire Survivors IP into a cascade of fun.
It has some distinct and unique ideas that play differently in spots like the Crawler cards, and it feels really good to play. This was a demo I lost hours in, in a way that I never really have with Vampire Survivors itself.
Voidling Bound
I originally came across Voidling Bound last year, as they released their demo originally last spring. I’m happy that I can now talk about this monster taming/collecting game in this article, because it is a lot of fun. It takes that idea of finding and collecting monsters and turns it into a third-person shooter as you take control of the little creatures, called Voidlings, and explore and battle on different missions.
The controls are snappy, the combat fluid, and the variation in creatures and abilities intriguing. Voidling Bound is at its best in its exploration levels, but there’s fun in its hoard levels as well, and the mixture makes for a compelling proposition.
Bobo Bay
Sticking with cute little creatures, if you want a less action-packed game with little dudes, Bobo Bay might be up your alley. This is a game that takes inspiration from raising sims, and the Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure and has you raising these little creatures around and putting them into competitions.
Get them trained up, fed up, and put them into competitions that their skills are best suited to and eventually into even bigger projects. Beyond that there’s a cheerful energy that infuses the game, and it’s fun to move around in a way that a lot of games just don’t have.
Battlestar Galactica: Shattered Hopes
From the persistently cheerful realm of Bobo Bay, we go to the darkness of space, and that no less of the 12 Colonies. In command of a small fleet escaping the Cylon destruction, you must guide them through tough decisions and difficult battles as you attempt to rejoin the Battlestar Galactica with your own ship and the civilians you are protecting. More than anything, Shattered Hopes captures the feel of the modern Battlestar Galactica with the grimness, the desperation, and the constant need to keep moving.
It’s not the highest production tie-in, nor are its battles incredibly complicated, but they are tense, short, and designed to press you to make decisions and accept tradeoffs before you are able to jump away.
Fading Echo
This is a fast-paced action-adventure RPG game where you find yourself in control of elements and able to reshape the world around you with it. Turn into a ball of water like Samus’ morph ball and use that to put out fires or bounce around and through the water.
Add in some cheek, and other elements to play with and Fading Echo is a lot of fun to move around, to explore, to solve puzzles, and fight in.
Celestial Return
A story-driven RPG experience, Celestial Return posits a dark, and intriguing world where you play as a burnt-out detective who decides to care one last time. Disco Elysium meets Blade Runner with an intriguing way of handling luck by treating dice as a resource used for just about everything, and they come in a variety of forms. Combine that with a unique aesthetic and this is a must-play game.
Darkhaven
Like many of my generation, I grew up with Diablo 2, and that game is still shaping things with its new expansion and everything else. Somewhere along the way though, the ARPG genre kinda decided that it had already reached peak and just began doing small tweaks on the same format. Don’t get me wrong, I love games like Torchlight too, but I also wonder if anyone was going to ever move the line.
Well, some of the Diablo and Torchlight crew are back with Darkhaven and their big idea is essentially to mix the ARPG with survival games. Take the items and quests and mix that with the building and destructible world of Minecraft, and you know what it? It works. The whole part of the world being so changeable creates significant differences in how the game plays, and new exploration options. Building here is kept simple so you aren’t tracking 30 things, and it gives the game a distinct feel.
Darkhaven’s demo here is rawer than others, as the game is also currently on Kickstarter seeking funding for another year of development. Right now what you have is a pre-alpha where you can see a lot of the seams and raw edges showing, but there’s a lot of promise here and room for something that is very different from what came before.
Titanium Court
The most surreal game I experienced throughout Next Fest, Titanium Court is out there and it is weird in many many ways. The fourth wall gets leaned on, the world in it is odd, and its got weird-as-hell characters and interface interactions at times that delight in their surreal absurdism.
While that might be enough to get interest, what you’ll find underneath is a deep strategy matching game that is unique in how it plays. The closest in someways is something like Drop Dutchy, but this focuses on match-3 type mechanics, and how different types of blocks and your subjects all interact as you try to maximize returns, minimize invasions, and find your way through a bizarre and compelling narrative.
Windrose
One of the interesting things you can watch at times on Steam is the population of survival-craft players. They emerge from one and will seemingly migrate en masse to another game. Sometimes you can even predict what the next one will be – and Windrose looks like it.
And I mean, why not? It looks good, it’s a golden age of piracy themed survival game, and it plays pretty well too. It has a bit more combat depth then many of these games, but features all the same tracks you would expect while having a few different things and a focus on sailing and finding treasure that you don’t see elsewhere necessarily in the genre. Arr Matey, hoist the jolly roger and prepare to battle as we seek revenge on Blackbeard himself!
Vultures – Scavengers of Death
Have you ever wondered, what would Resident Evil be like if it was turn based? Well you don’t need to really wonder any more, as Vultures – Scavengers of Death here presents a pitch-perfect take on the ’90s horror styling turned into a tactics type experience. Seek what is causing the infected mutants (totally not zombies) to cause problems while managing your scarce resources and gathering more.
Avoid combat where you can, beat enemies where you must, and wonder – what is that around that corner?