10 Exciting Games We Played During Steam Next Fest 2025 - Here's What We Thought
Best of the Fest
Steam Next Fest rolls around a few times a year and is always one of my favourite events on the gaming calendar - an opportunity to get hands-on with some of the most exciting upcoming Indie and AA games. With greats like Tunic, Sable, and Balatro first grabbing attention through Next Fest demos, there's a high chance you'll catch the next big thing early.
This year's June offering, dropping just a week after Summer Game Fest, is one of the strongest in years. The industry hype is palpable, and smaller showcases like Wholesome Direct are regularly spotlighting titles with demos being made available the moment their presentations end.
So we here at Game Friend dove in, checked out and played several demos - and I want to tell you about a few of our favourites.
Mina the Hollower
From Yacht Club Games, developers of Shovel Knight, comes Mina The Hollower - a top-down, Zelda and Souls-inspired pixel art action-adventure game. Essentially a Game Boy game with modern sensibilities.
Set in a dark fantasy world inhabited by prominently humanoid animals, you play as the titular Mina - who is, you guessed it, a Hollower. You hack and slash through gorgeous pixel art environments at a rapid pace, aided by your dig ability to burrow underground to avoid enemies and obstacles, creating clever puzzle opportunities.
It features Souls-like mechanics too: bones act as both currency and upgrade material, spent via predetermined holes in the ground - bonfire-like checkpoints that lead to Mina's Hollow, a little upgradable base. It's not brutally difficult, but this crossover of souls systems, classic top-down Zelda combat, and experimental mechanics looks to be a perfect combination. Mina The Hollower could be an absolute banger.
Developer: Yacht Club Games
Published: Yacht Club Games
Release date: October 31st 2025
Star Birds
Two genres that have grown significantly in the Indie space over that past few years, are the automation/resource management sims and, even more so, roguelikes. Star Birds simplifies both down and stitches them into a surprisingly charming combination.
That surprise extends to the development side - a collaboration between Toukana Interactive, the minds behind cozy town-building puzzler, Dorfromantik, and Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell, creators of whimsically animated science videos. The snappy puzzle designs of Toukana paired with Kurzgesagt's instantly recognisable art and soundscapes are a wonderful combination.
You play as an avian exploration team - composed of engineers and scientists journeying through space, gathering resources from asteroids using interconnected apparatus. You shuttle resources back and forth between your base and other asteroids as needs be, based on crew requests. It's simple to pick up, but increasingly complex scaling down of the Factorio-like formula, neatly fit into an inspired rogue-lite structure. Runs take place across a varied series of asteroids, maximising Star Birds' replayablility
Developer: Toukana Interactive
Publisher: Toukana Interactive, Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Release date: 2025 (TBA)
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault
Moonlighter released back in 2018, and has since become a bit of a cult classic - a blend of Zelda-style dungeon crawling, and shop management. You’d explore dungeons, gather up relics, then bring them back to sell your haul to excited customers. You might consider it ahead of it’s time - an early evolution of the traditional roguelike formula, before the genre expanded into what we see today.
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, continues the traditions of the first, modernises it, and infuses it into the more commonplace roguelike structure. You're still making your way through dungeons and gathering up relics to sell on, but now runs feature optional branching paths and stat upgrades that swing much close to the likes of Hades than the original. This extends to the shop too: flogging your wares now unlocks perks that buff item profitability, giving it a more strategic, puzzle-like structure.
With refined combat and a gorgeous shift to 3D art, Moonlighter 2 feels like a sequel that stays true to the original's vision - whilst bringing enough fresh ideas to hopefully stand out in today's stacked roguelike scene.
Developer: Digital Sun
Publisher: 11 bit studios
Release date: 2025 (TBA)
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
2025 is turning into the year of Ninja Gaiden. It kicked off with the announcement - and subsequent shadow drop - of Ninja Gaiden 2: Black, a remake of its namesake, alongside confirmation of Ninja Gaiden 4, the next instalment in the 3D series, both revealed during the Xbox Developer Direct back in January. Fans were already eatin' good - but it only got better with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound.
A brand-new entry in the original 2D side-scrolling-style, untouched since 1991, Ragebound is a welcome surprise. For most of us, it'll be our first experience with Ninja Gaiden in this form, and it's shaping up to be a great first impression.
Leaning into the original arcade-style roots, Ragebound has you tearing through demonic hordes at a rapid pace. With one-hit kill precision and timed power-ups to grab for tougher foes, it just feels fantastic to play. And in a post-Dark Souls, post-Cuphead world, it's nice to revisit one of the absolute OGs of hard-as-nails video games.
Developed by The Game Kitchen - best known for Blasphemous - it would be easy to assume it to be a metroidvania. But I'm glad they stuck to the original style, bringing a whole new audience to one of gaming's most iconic franchises.
Developer: The Game Kitchen
Publisher: Dotemu, Joystick
Release date: July 31st 2025
Possessor(s)
From the folks over at Heart Machine - developers of Hyperlight and Solar Ash - Possessors is yet another reminder that they're masters of hack and slack combat - be it 2D, 3D, top-down, and now, for their first crack, side-scrolling metroidvania. If this demo is anything to go by, they've absolutely nailed it.
Set in a cyberpunk-inspired world torn asunder by a cataclysmic event that's unleashed demons - possessing everything, I mean that quite literally, from people to plant pots and filing cabinets. The bold, and gorgeous 2D animated sprites pop against a vibrant 3D world, accompanied by a fantastically satisfying, Super Smash Bros - inspired multi-weapon combat system.
The lock and key metroidvania system leans more Metroid Dread, than Hollow Knight, using unlocks to intentionally guide your path , rather than relying on pure exploration, discovery, and a mental log of the world. Honestly, it's shaping up to be another standout great in an already stacked genre - probably my highlight of this Steam Next Fest.
No release date on Possessors as of yet. I'd assume Devolver Digital are waiting on Silksong to finally drop so they can give it a wide berth.
Developer: Heart Machine
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release Date: TBA
Hell Is Us
Possibly the most high-profile game on this list, Hell Is Us comes from developer Rogue Factor - a semi-open world hack and slash action adventure with a heavy emphasis on exploration, opting not to hold players hands through it. Whilst the demo leaned more linear and tutorial-driven, it still teased deeper mechanics with complex puzzles, and the need to remember specific details to back track and complete side quests.
This style of exploration and puzzle solving pulls heavily from survival horror territory - in its kind of abstract, find a weird item, then discover where it goes and vice versa, approach.
Combat has a decent, weighty souls-like feel, but without the punishing difficulty. Your character can definitely take some hits before going down, and with different weapons on display across the demo, there seems like there'll be some capacity for build crafting throughout.
But the thing that most people will be drawn to in this game are its visuals - Hell Is Us is gorgeous! Pulling visual inspiration from the likes of Death Stranding, Returnal, and Alan Wake 2. Lush forests, detailed farmsteads, crumbling ancient temples, and WW1 style trenches, all of which are striking, and deep in exploration opportunities. This is looking like a potential hit when Hell Is Us drops later this year.
Developer: Rogue Factor
Publisher: Nacon
Release date: September 4th 2025
Baby Steps
The ‘Rage Game’ has become big business over the last few years - with Only Up, Pogostuck, Jump King, and A Difficult game about Climbing all gaining massive traction with streamers and racking up significant sales to boot! Now, the genre's original architect, QWOP and Getting Over It creator Bennett Foddy, is back with Baby Steps.
This one isn't strictly a rage game - or ‘Foddian’ - game (a term coined by rage game connoisseur, Ludwig), but more an extension of the formula. It still has bizarre controls, that sees you manipulate each leg with separate buttons and lean your character to move. It isn’t as fiddly or infuriating as QWOP, but still has some of that jank you'd expect from this sort of thing. And thankfully, it's doesn't seem to be as punishing as Getting Over it - you won't lose all of your progress from one dodgy foot placement. But the goal is still to climb up a big mountain, and lemme tell you, there will be some falling. There are also smaller challenges, kind of like mini climbing puzzles, to gather collectibles and complete side quests, and I can just see myself getting addicted to these.
The classic Foddy gameplay is then elevated by some of the funniest voice acting, and writing I've ever seen in a game. You play as a 30-year-old manchild (I feel called out) living in his parents' basement who gets teleported into a cave in his onesie. The cast of characters you meet along the way deliver every line with fantastically dry, Aussie-style humour - I was cackling at every interaction. It all feels pretty authentic for a world where you're a grown man in a onesie clumsily hauling himself up a muddy mountain.
Baby Steps is looking like it'll be a hit with streamers and every folks alike when it launches on September 8th.
Developer: Bennett Foddy, Gabe Cuzzilo, Maxi Boch
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release date: September 8th 2025
Morsels
Morsels has had a bit of a rough go with its planned release. Originally slated for late 2024, it's since been pushed into an unspecified 2025 window - potentially due to the wider issues at Annapurna Interactive (though that's just speculation). But now that we've had hands-on time with the game, in the form of a demo, I can safely say it’ll be worth the slightly extended wait.
A charmingly gross top-down creature collecting shooter, roguelite, Morsels combines Nobody Saves the World with The Binding of Isaac to make a grimy, gorgeously surreal experience. You play as a mouse who can possess freaky creatures, each with their unique combat style - and switch between them on the fly as you navigate through maze-like, increasingly difficult levels. You're hoarding cheese scraps for currency and building up your creature roster as you go.
It's a fast-paced, challenging, and addictively moreish - essential to thrive in the roguelite genre. The art direction, despite objectively gross, is actually incredibly charming, with every character feeling distinct. The whole thing is glazed in a CRT filter that feels nostalgic, and perfectly at home. The soundtrack also absolutely slaps, funky lo fi basslines follows you everywhere you go, elevating the tone and pace of the game nicely.
Developer: Furcula
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Release Date: 2025 (TBA)
Hirogami
Hirogami feels like a lost WiiU-era Nintendo game, and I mean that in the best way possible. A 3D action/puzzle platformer that reminds me a lot of Super Mario 3D World, but with a bit more of a focus on light hack and slash combat, and creature-collecting, form-shifting abilities.
The real draw here is the art style. Everything is made up of gorgeously rendered origami-sprites, and structures, brought to life in a wonderful stop motion animation style. It actually feels like you're controlling a papercraft character through a handcrafted world.
The demo was short and quite easy, but showcases the potential for additional complexity through its shape shifting mechanics, opening up possibilities for intricate puzzles and combat encounters. This is certainly one to keep on your radar ahead of its September release..
Developer: Kakehashi Games
Publisher: Bandai Namco Studios Singapore
Release Date: September 3rd 2025
Ball x Pit
The trend of turning every genre into a roguelike is coming in full force at this Next Fest - but non have done it quite as well as Ball X Pit. To give you a sense of the hype of this thing, Devolver Digital dedicated their entire Summer Game Fest showcase to this one game. They think it's gonna be killer - and so should you.
At its core, Ball X Pit is Breakout meets Vampire Survivors. Think the classic block breaking game we all played on our parents' phones back in the day, mashed up with the bullet-heaven addiction of Vampire Survivors that took the world by storm a few years ago.
You pick from a roster of characters, each with unique starting balls and passives, then descend into the Pit. Hordes of skeletons swarm you, and you fend them off firing balls through the crowd - levelling up, unlocking new powered-up balls, and combing them to create massively overpowered synergies to complete a run.
And once your run ends - win or die - you return back to your village, where town building kicks in. But get this: the building section is also Breakout! You literally bounce your characters around your plot, aiming to smash into crops, trees, and buildings to farm and build as needed. It's so simple, but so, so good.
Keep an eye on this one, I think it could do big numbers.
Developer: Kenny Sun
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release Date: 2025 (TBA)
And that's a wrap on Steam Next Fest! Before I go, a quick shout-out to some honourable mentions that didn't quite make the top ten but were still absolutely stellar and well worth checking out: Clover Pit, Easy Delivery Co, Holstin, Mio Memories in Orbit, Word Play, and Hell Clock.
If you like to look of any of these games - or any other game on Steam for that matter - please pop them onto Wishlist. It makes a huge difference for devs, helping them gain visibility, pitch for funding, and ultimately bring their games to life.
At the time of writing, all of these demos are still available to play, so go see the future of video games for yourself!
Craig Reid
Have you tried any of the demos from this Steam Next Fest? Or spotted something here that’s caught your eye? Let us know in the comments below.