Steam Next Fest Picks for 2026
What were some of my favorite Steam Next Fest demos? Find out by reading this article, you nosy nosy person you! (Thank you for reading)
By the time you're reading this, I should already be in New Jersey. I'm going to New Japan Pro Wrestling's pay-per-view event New Beginnings, so I didn't really have time for another essay. Luckily, I was covered by the fact that Steam Next Fest, a yearly demo littered showcase of the newest up and coming games happened. So I took this week to play nearly 10 different demos.
Here's what happened.
I went into this game with some skepticism. With apologies to my theater friends, musicals usually don't do it for me. Even looking back at Disney classics, I still find singing at the top of your lungs during some pivotal moment of the plot to be (at best) distracting and off-putting. At worst, it completely takes me out of whatever is going on in the given scene and I just sit there frustrated people aren't just talking like normal human beings, instead of singing at each other, for Reasons.
Then again, I watch anime where people yell for a full episode while powering up.
So who am I to judge?
Anyways, People of Note is a turn-based musical game.
And I really liked the demo.
So, there goes my anti-musical cred, I guess.
You play as a young woman named Cadence (get it?) as she joins forces with other musicians such as Fret (GET IT) and tries to get first in the Noteworthy Song Contest. Along the way you'll learn that maybe it's not all about being a popular musician and maybe art and music are actually inherently political in some way?
Woah!
Yeah, Cadence starts the game as a bit of a self-centered jerk, to be honest. She literally sees a war torn community and is like, "Yeah that sucks, but anyways can you join my band so I can this contest and I can be super popular??" But hey, most protagonists start off with the whole "I'm not hero" mantra, so it's fine. As long as there is some character growth, which even in the span of a short demo, I saw some, so I don't think Cadence will be staying that selfish for long.
Regardless, the combat is the real star here. You take turns doing actions, mostly with a lot of musical puns involved. Each round is based on rhythm based action prompts, timing, and making sure you stay on the beat. Ironically, I had more trouble with the calibration set up (which, to be fair, you can skip) than I did with the actual gameplay. You can get a "good", "great", or "perfect" depending on how rhythmic your inclinations are. Despite being a bassist for around 10 years, my sense of rhythm is sometimes astronomically low, but I still did alright!
What I didn't do alright with were the puzzles. Easily my least favorite part of this game was a dungeon (basically) where you had to do a bunch of laser puzzles back to back. Luckily People of Note lets you turn off the puzzle difficulty and after giving one particular laser routine a few too many tries, I turned off the difficulty, left the area, came back in, and did it in seconds. Whoopee.
The rest of the puzzles I figured out on my own, but even then it was some trial and error and I just didn't find it particularly engaging. The trick with puzzles too is they should (ideally) add to the narrative in some meaningful way, connect to the characters, or at least be engaging and fun, but I didn't get much of that. Part of the issue was the level design was a bit samey and I got turned around.
This required me to go back a few times over the level (no map either) to figure out where the missing laser puzzle even was so I could open a door. That door, of course, needed to be opened so I could fight the boss.
Minor grievances aside, I really liked the combat. The characters are goofy and silly but I liked their motivations and dug all of the music terminology. It's clear to me that Iridium have a lot of love and passion for music. This showed throughout my two hours with the demo as I saw "System of a Gown", I mean, come on.
I'm a sucker for puns, it's true. It's damn true.
Anyways, a fun comic book art style with great turn-based combat, interesting characters, and some mildly annoying puzzles, made for a great time overall.
Oh, and of course, the music fucking ripped. From metal songs, to hardcore punk beats, and even some country twang, I was bobbing my head a bunch. I'm very excited to get my hands on the full game and enjoy the soundtrack in full!
But I played other games too, so let's talk about those!
I know I talked a lot about People of Note but that's partially because there's only one or two other games I'll have that much to say about. And if you haven't noticed by now, I try to keep my articles around 10 minutes in length.
One of the first games I don't have a lot to say on is Fishbowl which is a narrative game centered around the loss of a young woman's grandmother. It's supposed to be tinged with emotion, it takes place during the pandemic so a lot of it is characters interacting over video, and there's interactive elements.
This is a game I really wanted to like. I believe Fishbowl likely has important things to say about grief, loss, and doing your best to move forward. But \ it's a game, so I have to judge it by its gameplay as well. And for my tastes, I just didn't find it very satisfying. Mixing coffee, sending emails, making food for yourself, all with the random direction keys, clicks of the mouse, and movements of your character. Nothing especially interesting or exciting for me. It falls too far into the life simulator camp and those are things I struggle with enough in my own life, thank you very much, I'd rather not struggle with them in virtual space too!
And even within the story I just didn't connect a lot. Nothing to do with Alo and cultural differences between us (though the fact she's in her twenties is wild, her sprite looks like an elementary kid!), I just have never lost a close family member and have issues with the one specific family member it focuses on.
So the emotional core, after nearly an hour, just didn't land for me. That doesn't mean it sucks or won't be good for folks who like more slice of life vibes in their game, but this was a game I wasn't sure about and then got proven right.
I'm sure this game is going to fucking rip someone's world apart and I think that's awesome. There's already some positive words from Kotaku, so I hope it gets more coverage, because the themes its tackling are important. I'm just not a huge fan of life-simulators so I knew this would be a risky venture for me.
This one was a much less risky venture. It was Japanese, visual novel, had weird supernatural elements, and it felt like the choices would matter. Basically, you're playing a little girl whose job it is to console people who are about to die. In this case, the entire planet is about to be destroyed (I just know it's gotta be Frieza behind this somehow) and you have, and I quote, "twenty-one nanoseconds".
That's at least 5 episodes of peak Dragon Ball Z!
Anyways, this visual novel was indeed very visual. The art style was incredibly surreal as you might guess and very interesting. But I got frustrated by Mary (the little girl) and her predilection for not understanding the fundamentals of what was going on. I put less than an hour into it, maybe less than a half-hour to be honest, and it just didn't resonate with me. This is despite me loving visual novels, being intrigued by the plot, and loving the actual visuals in the game itself.
Then again, the developers are celebrating over 50K wishlists, so clearly I'm the issue here. Or at the very least, I'm in the minority in it not connecting for me.
But you know what I'm not in the minority for?
I love Disco Elysium.
One day maybe I'll replay it and do an essay on it (I know, what a novel idea Dory! No one has ever done that before!). But for now, please consider the fact that I played the original, the Final Cut (37 hours on record on Steam), beat them both at least a couple of times, watched depressing documentaries about what happened to the developer, and honestly I'm still so fucking bummed about it.
We'll never get that magic again. We probably were never going to anyways because sequels almost never live up to the hype (although Kingdom Hearts 2...) and even when they do, it just gets harder and harder to follow up successfully.
So when I tell you that Esoteric Ebb touched at that magic, I am not being half-hearted with my praise. I'm not damning with faint praise or whatever. This is one of the kindest things I could say to any game, let alone a game obviously explicitly inspired by Disco. I would go as far to call this game part of a new genre called a Disco-like (this is where my fellow nerds get mad at me for increasing categorization and labels in an already crowded market).
But yeah, this is a Disco-like, deal with it.
Even the developer says so on the store page!
From the sense of humor, to the plot, to the characters, to the side scrawl of text, to just the vibe. Heck, even some of the songs sound like they're from Martinaise's long lost cousin, twice removed. None of this is a bad thing, for me anyways. I want more games to emulate one of my favorite games of all time. I'm not saying I want a straight up duplicate (no one could ever anyways), but I want something that is at least aiming at that magic, and goddamn does Esoteric Ebb hit!
Okay, enough background on this.
What is this game about?
Esoteric Ebb is an RPG (just like Disco) that is isometric (just like Disco) and has a "choices matter" label (just like...well you get it). Honestly, the only major difference here is the time period, your character, and what they're doing and why.
So OK, some pretty big differences, to be fair.
But being a Cleric and being a Detective are kinda the same thing right? You're basically detecting for the city in honor of your god and the person who hired you, I mean you are even exploring a semi-ruined city because of a crime. There's definitely some superficial similarities here, at least. But don't get me wrong, this is also doing one thing very differently. This Disco-like has another D involved.
No, not that, pervert.
I mean D&D, Dungeons and Dragons!
That's right, Esoteric Ebb and its gameplay system runs on one of my favorite RPG systems of all time (Wizards of the Coast can go screw off though).
So let me get this straight (or queer, whatever): This game is trying to be similar to one of my favorite games of all time, using one of my favorite RPG systems as a framework for its gameplay, and then on top of that it's got some cool artwork and music to go along with it? Well, it's got to be disappointing then, right?
Thankfully no. In the five hours I spent on this demo, and yeah, this is a generous that demo that gives you (on average according to the developer himself) 1/5 of the game for free, I had an absolute blast. And on another note, I don't think I've seen a demo that long since Metaphor Refantazio and that was nearly 10 hours with the game being around 70 and (thankfully) the demo progress being carried over. Gratefully, that's the same here, you can carry over demo progress.
Shit, I still haven't explained the basic premise right?
OK, so basically you're a cleric, your quest (this guy loves quests) to explore the city and find out who committed the greatest sin of all: Blowing up a tea shop!
Uncle Iroh would not approve!
But really, I can't say enough positive things about this game. From the fantastic dialogue, to the sense of breadth this world clearly has built into it, the love and care that was put into integrating D&D in a way that was accessible yet (mostly) faithful to its original design and intentions, it's just good. There's very few criticisms I have, probably the biggest is only being able to save before a conversation and not during which can make save-scumming a bit more of a pain in the ass, but of course, I would never do that, so what does it matter?
You also argue with yourself and the voices in your head, a lot. And all of these voices have something interesting to say at almost every turn. And they're fucking hilarious and worth (not) listening to every time. I just love this game and I'm so excited for it to fully release March 3rd! That's like...a week away or something!
But Dory, medieval shit is for nerds! I don't want to be a bumbling cleric, I want to be a detective like Harry was in Disco. Ooh, and what about cyberpunk shit, can I have that too? No reason, just asking. Thanks!
Wow, that's so specific, but luckily for you, Celestial Return exists!
This is a much shorter demo than Esoteric Ebb but the trade off is a lot more glitz and glamor from the art style, as well as some heavy techno music that's really fun as well. The story here is you play a detective named Howard who is investigating a slew of suicides that are taking place in his dystopian cyberpunk futuristic city.
Once again, a choices matter styled system, there are dice involved but it's all about those D4s and meeting the target number. No D&D here, but definitely enough dice to shake a dragon in their own dungeon for sure.
Now, as I mentioned, I love Disco Elysium, but I also just am a sucker for a good detective game. I love how mysteries unfold, I love noir tropes (well, at least when they're not misogynistic) and I love the style of detectives as well. And although I'm ACAB all day, I can't but help at least mildly admire people who make it their life's mission to actively and actually help the community around them. Especially if they specifically investigate murders, that's genuine good work, even if, as most noir makes painfully obvious, a lot of it is surrounded or filled with corruption.
And again, you have a bunch of voices in your head telling you what you should or shouldn't be doing in a given situation. The interesting thing here is that Celestial Return makes sure that it's very possible you fail rolls. Dice are a commodity in this game and you can (and likely will) run out if you try to succeed at everything.
Luckily, you can buy dice from people, find them in your environment, or get them by completing quests. So there's a real risk and reward system here. This was probably my second or third favorite demo, so go check it out for yourself!
Another case of me wanting (and failing) to vibe with a game.
BSS (as I'm going to call it from here on out) is a surreal narrative adventure where you are trying to figure out why the missing God of a dead world has disappeared and collect a moments from the struggling populace before they all go boom.
Yeah, it's weird.
And the art style doesn't help it beat the weirdo allegations either. But hey, I'm a weirdo, so this game seems right up my alley! Er, street. Whatever.
Unfortunately, the main gameplay loop again lets me down a bit. I really wanted to like it, but it's basically a rock/paper/scissors conversation system where you need to have the right responses to the right people/creatures. But you can only get those responses via talking to certain people and you usually have to mess up once or twice to get help from your book friend (literally a talking red book).
And after a little over a half-hour I just didn't see that gameplay loop as one that made me feel like I was engaged with what I was playing. It felt a bit like a narrative game with a surface level puzzle that was a little quirky and fun at first, but I quickly grew tired of it and didn't get much joy out of it.
This was a neat looking rogue-like action game. But I didn't think the shooting felt very impactful, the gameplay seemed a bit repetitive (are you sensing a theme here in stuff I don't like?) and I just wanted more out of it. The music was also weirdly quiet and didn't help me feel engrossed in what I was doing.
I dropped this one pretty fast.
A cool game about music, small record stores, knowing what your customers want and then delivering on that desire. This one has a great look and an even better soundtrack but (get ready for this) I wasn't hugely into the gameplay. Which basically reduced to, "Find a record, figure out if it meets people's needs, be inevitably disappointed when it doesn't for some reason".
This was another game I knew was a risk but I'm glad I at least tried it!
Conclusion
So that's it for me this week, hope everyone enjoys their weekend and got to play a bunch of awesome games. And if you only take one thing away from this blog I hope you'll give the Esoteric Ebb demo a shot or at least wishlist it!
Happy gaming!
