Steam Next Fest returns October 19 for a week of free demos

The next Steam Next Fest has a date. Valve's demo festival runs from 10:00 a.m. PDT on October 19 to 10:00 a.m. PDT on October 26 - a flat week in which the store fills up with playable demos for games that have not come out yet.

The dates that matter

For players, October 19 is the only one to remember. For anyone following what will be in it, there is an earlier marker: the press preview opens at 10am PDT on October 8, eleven days before the festival itself, which is when the first coverage of the lineup usually appears.

Developers are already past their deadlines. Registration closed on August 31, the cutoff for inclusion in the press preview was September 14, and the final deadline for all required materials was September 28. In other words the roster is set, and nothing new can be added now.

What qualifies

Valve's rules are stricter than they look. A game needs a published public store page and a playable demo, and that demo cannot be a prologue, a chapter one, or any other repackaging of content players can already buy. The game also has to release after October 26 - a Next Fest demo is for something still coming.

The rule that shapes the festival most is the one-shot limit: "Titles are only allowed to participate in one Next Fest." Developers pick the edition that suits them, which is why a game that demoed in February cannot come back in October for a second run at the same audience.

Why it matters

Next Fest has become the most useful week of the year for finding unreleased games, particularly small ones without a marketing budget. And because every game gets exactly one shot, what appears in October is a snapshot of what studios think is ready to be judged.