Review Atlas/Reports/Steam Next Fest, October 2026

Next Fest report · 19 to 26 October 2026

What players said about Steam Next Fest's top 25 demos

October's Next Fest was the biggest yet, with more than 7,000 demos. We analysed all 11,401 Steam reviews, in every language, on the 25 most-played demos with reviews, and here's what players said.

Collected 26 Oct 2026Every languageTop 25 by peak players

25demos with the highest player peaks of Next Fest

11,401Steam reviews analysed, 13 Aug to 26 Oct

88%median score of the 25 demos during Next Fest

3 pointstypical gap between a demo's score before and during Next Fest

Start with the 8 findings ↓See all 25 demos

Before the findings

These were the 25 most popular Next Fest demos

More than 7,000 demos were in October's Next Fest. The median demo here was recommended by 88% of its reviewers during Next Fest, and 22 of the 25 by 80% or more.

So the findings below are small things players pointed out, each one something a team can act on before launch. If the report mentions a specific game, it's just because that's the clearest example.

If you made one of these demos, congrats, and I'd really like to hear what you saw on your side.

25most‑played of the 7,164 Next Fest demos

88%median score during Next Fest

22 of 25recommended by 80% or more

median 88%

Each demo's score during Next Fest, highest to lowest, from 98% to 66%. Each one has its own card at the foot of the page.

Before vs during Next Fest

Ship the demo early: its score before Next Fest was a good guide to its score during it, typically within 3 points

For the 18 demos with 20+ reviews beforehand, the demos kept roughly the same order before and during Next Fest (rank correlation 0.82), and the median gap is 3 points. We looked for a downside to putting a demo out early and didn't find one: how long a demo had been live made no real difference to its peak players (rank correlation −0.06), and scores mostly moved a few points either way.

What to do

Ship the demo a few weeks early

01Put the demo out a few weeks before Next Fest, since the score beforehand is a good preview of the score during Next Fest and you still have time to respond to what players write.
02Launching early didn't bring more peak players on its own, so the real reason to do it is the time it gives you to respond to players.

Score before vs during Next Fest

18 demos with 20+ reviews before Next Fest. Blue held or rose, rust fell. Dot size: Next Fest reviews

Days live before Next Fest vs median peak

"Live" is dated by first review. Small groups of 5 to 10 demos, so treat these medians as a rough pattern

6,097median peak · 6 demos launched on day 1 of Next Fest

1,526median peak · 10 demos live 1 to 14 days early

9,711median peak · 5 demos live 28+ days

Steam's most helpful reviews

Check your top 10 helpful reviews daily: Grr Grr Gnomes was recommended 87% of the time, but one level, mentioned in under 3% of its reviews, was the subject of 7 of its 10 most helpful reviews, all of them negative

So a buyer reading the store page saw the weakest part of a demo most players loved, before anything else. Negatives are about 9% of reviews but 24.6% of reviews with 5+ helpful votes, and negative reviews get 2.3× the votes on average (2.52 vs 1.12). The store page shows reviews ranked by helpfulness, so what a buyer actually reads is a lot more negative than the score.

What to do

Watch your top 10 every day

01Check your store page's top 10 helpful reviews every day of Next Fest, since the top 10 is what a buyer actually reads.
02When one level, a pricing plan or a missing disclosure is collecting votes, patch the demo during Next Fest, before the negative reviews about it climb any further.
03Reply to the top negative publicly with the fix, so the next buyer sees your fix right next to the review.

The more votes a review has, the more likely it's negative

Share of reviews that are negative, by helpful votes, all 25 demos

5.7%

10.5%

18.7%

24.8%

24.4%

all reviews 8.8%

0 votesn=7,6071 voten=2,1212-4 votesn=1,1535-9 votesn=31510+ votesn=205

Where the top 10 is furthest from the score

Negatives among the top 10 English most-helpful reviews. Average across all 25 demos: 1.6

Grr Grr Gnomes

87%

all 7 are about the disability level

DREADMOOR

78%

Fishing and voice acting, in the reviews

Never Be Alone

66%

performance and the opening, in the reviews, SurrounDead

Loftia

85%

monetisation (115 votes), gap from the Kickstarter

Abyssal Lapidary

86%

undisclosed AI (64 votes)

Dude, Trust Me

82%

2 on undisclosed AI

HANDS OVER

76%

RNG, "play Liars Bar instead"

Grr Grr Gnomes demo · Steam reviews

Very Positive 87% of 345 reviews

Most helpful English reviews, as Steam ranks them on 26 Oct

#17👍

#27👍

#38👎

#421👎

#511👎

#68👎

#78👎

#87👎

#92👍

#1010👎

7 of the top 10 are negative and all 7 are about one level and how it portrays disability. Only 9 of the game's 345 reviews mention that level.

Example reviewsThe disability level

3 real reviews

Not recommended2 hours at review21 found it helpful12 OctEnglish

Really enjoyed this game until we landed on "Autistic Island" which had one person in an abandoned house on a tiny island that had eyes that look like a chameleon and he was acting crazy. He requested a fish to join the team and then requested poop.... Super messed up. …

Grr Grr Gnomes demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended1 hour at review10 found it helpful17 OctEnglish

I would say I recommend but unless the Autistic island thing is removed I can't. It just makes fun of a disability for no reason whatsoever and it's very harmful for those people or anyone with a shred of knowledge on the matter

Grr Grr Gnomes demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended2 hours at review8 found it helpful12 OctEnglish

Was having fun playing this game with some friends. And then we reached autistic island. Kinda messed up

Grr Grr Gnomes demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Loftia demo, 85% recommend. The most-voted positive and negative, all languages, as of 26 Oct. The negative review has 3× the votes of the positive one.

Most helpful recommending the gameMost helpful against the game

Recommended52 minutes at review37 found it helpful20 Oct

A phenomenal effort from a humble-sized team. You can tell this game was handcrafted in every detail with passion, care, consistent development and attentiveness to its community, and has clear plans for its future. We can expect free DLC updates, which is generous for a one-time purchase MMO at this price. And with the team not supporting genAI, everything they've made and will make is created by the team and their sheer talent. …

Loftia demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended3 hours at review115 found it helpful22 Oct

What's here isn't bad, but I can't recommend it based on the planned monetization. Loftia is planning to have: - An initial buy price just to access it - Cosmetic microtransactions - Season passes It should be either buy to play with no additional monetization or free to play with microtransactions, not both. Additionally, cosmetic microtransactions in a game where the primary focus is self-expression is basically equivalent to p2w imo. …

Loftia demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Generative AI

If there's AI in your demo, fill in Steam's disclosure: the most-voted complaint about undisclosed AI drew 64 helpful votes, about 25 times a typical negative review

103 reviews mention generative AI and only 33% of those 103 are positive. Negative reviews that mention AI make up 6.9% of all negative reviews, and only 2 of the 25 demos carry a formal Steam AI disclosure.

What to do

Fill in the disclosure

01If there's any generative AI in the build, fill in Steam's AI disclosure before Next Fest.
02Expect some AI negatives even after you disclose. Never Be Alone disclosed and still had 10 AI negatives, along with players defending it: "it was only apparently used for two textures, two voices…"
03Assume players will look for AI the store page doesn't mention. The reviews that called it out were voted up (see #2): "Undisclosed AI Usage is even worse than disclosed AI usage."

AI complaints as a share of each demo's negatives

Keyword count of AI mentions in several languages, with false hits like "friend slop" taken out

Abyssal Lapidary

36% of its negatives · 24 mentions

Not disclosed

Never Be Alone

11% of its negatives · 16 mentions

Disclosed

Hellforged

11% of its negatives · 10 mentions

Not disclosed

Dude, Trust Me

31% of its negatives · 5 mentions

Not disclosed

Find The Needle

4% of its negatives · 6 mentions

Not disclosed

Never Wither

0% of its negatives · 0 mentions

Disclosed

Never Wither discloses AI concept art and has 0 AI mentions. Hellforged has a note low on the page, but no formal Steam AI section.

Example reviewsWhat disclosure changes

3 real reviews

Recommended1 hour at review2 found it helpful22 OctEnglish

This game shows promise, especially in the story and how it plays into the survival. Some of the other reviews warn of ai usage in the development, though I will say it was only apparently used for two textures, two voices, and used to enhance a small portion of music. …

Never Be Alone demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended14 hours at review5 found it helpful25 OctEnglish

Undisclosed AI Usage is even worse than disclosed AI usage.

Abyssal Lapidary demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended4 hours at review2 found it helpful26 OctEnglish

Game is fine but needs a lot more systems to keep it interesting longer than the initial novelty. Negative review due to undisclosed AI usage. Trying to hide AI usage is not a good look just disclose it most people don't seem to care about AI. If you do it is confirmed that it was used for coding the inventory system. …

Abyssal Lapidary demoRead on Steam ↗︎

33%

of AI-mentioning reviews are positive

2/25

demos with a formal Steam AI disclosure

Example reviewsUndisclosed AI

3 real reviews

Not recommended3 hours at review64 found it helpful23 OctEnglish

While the ideas are great... the whole game is tainted by AI usage (having code for portions of the inventory system written by claude) that the dev themselves has publicly stated yet not disclosed on the steam page.

Abyssal Lapidary demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended51 minutes at review21 found it helpful20 OctEnglish

Does not disclose AI generated content. Devs claim to have removed said content but it is very obviously still in the game, from the menus to even the store page.

Dude, Trust Me demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended3 hours at review14 found it helpful12 OctEnglish

Undisclosed AI usage! Most artwork within the game is ai generated, and i believe some UI elements are also generated using ai. While the game was an enjoyable experience, i cannot recommend it until the devs add an AI content disclosure to the steam page of the game, or correct me if i am completely wrong about this (which i doubt)/replace the generated assets. …

Dude, Trust Me demoRead on Steam ↗︎

CaveatThe AI claims in these reviews are reviewers' claims about what developers said elsewhere. We haven't verified the claims, and none of the claims is a finding about the developer.

Comparisons

Reviewers judged DREADMOOR against Dredge, on the thing Dredge is known for: the fishing

Dredge came up 54 times in DREADMOOR's reviews, in 16 of its 92 negatives, and 22 reviews called its fishing boring or tedious. 70% of the reviews that named Dredge recommended the demo. The demos reviewers described as a mix of two games did better: 91% of Hellforged's reviews naming Diablo and 90% of Find The Needle's naming Satisfactory recommended them. That's only four demos, so it's not enough to call it a rule.

What to do

Win the core loop in 10 minutes

01If players will compare your demo to one game, make your version of that game's core loop hold up in the first 10 minutes, as DREADMOOR's fishing had to against Dredge's.
02A sequel demo has to show what's new in the first session, or reviewers call it DLC.

A blend of two hits

"Diablo, but…" scores well

Hellforged vs Diablo49 mentions. Vampire Survivors comes up 28 times too

Find The Needle vs Satisfactory39 mentions, plus 20 for Factorio

Compared head-on to the hit

"The new Dredge" gets tested

DREADMOOR vs Dredge54 mentions, 16 of its 92 negatives. 22 reviews call the fishing boring or tedious

Never Be Alone vs SurrounDead16 mentions

Example reviewsCompared to Dredge

3 real reviews

Not recommended4 hours at review80 found it helpful16 OctEnglish

I really wanted more Dredge and thought I'd love this but yeah the fishing is super tedious mouse thrashing or key pressing, the characters are uninteresting or annoying, and every opportunity for some actual horror and dread is presented as a silly cartoon instead. …

DREADMOOR demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended16 minutes at review36 found it helpful19 OctEnglish

If you wanted more Dredge this isn't it. Voice work is terrible, it sounds like AI read out a lot of the lines and its constant, never getting time to relax without it in your ear. …

DREADMOOR demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended27 minutes at review4 found it helpful19 OctEnglish

This game feels like a mix of ideas from other games without bringing much originality. You can clearly see the influence of Dredge, the weird humor of Rick and Morty, and generic fishing, looting, and animation systems. …

DREADMOOR demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Example reviewsNamed both games and recommended the demo

2 real reviews

Recommended12 hours at review11 found it helpful16 AugEnglish

Not sure why people are saying its like Diablo, This is nothing like Diablo. Its like Vampire Survivors, it isnt an ARPG or a Hack 'n Slash, It is however Addictive, It is a time sink, and it is really fun. …

Hellforged demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Recommended4 hours at review2 found it helpful9 OctEnglish

Unlike other "Find The Needle" games, this one is incredibly good. Satisfactory + Alchemist Factory + fun! + quality! = Find The Needle.

Find The Needle demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Sequels

A sequel gets judged against its own original

35%

of Deadzone Rogue 2's 107 negatives mention the first game, "DLC" or "the original"

In Chinese: "完全是个dlc" [it's just a DLC]. Chinese reviews scored it 44%, against 87% in English (see #7).

Example reviews"Just a DLC"

3 real reviews

Not recommended36 minutes at review25 found it helpful22 OctEnglish

Good demo, mainly stemming from the fact that this game is basically the original Deadzone Rogue - which is a good game. Yet this is supposed to be a new game, which it is not. …

Deadzone Rogue 2 demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended14 hours at review1 found it helpful13 OctSimplified Chinese, translated

Not much different from part 1, it's basically a DLC…

Original和1差别不大，完全是个dlc，…

Deadzone Rogue 2 demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended30 minutes at review11 OctSimplified Chinese, translated

Part 1 only came out last year. Why the rush for money?

Original去年才出的1 这么着急恰米？

Deadzone Rogue 2 demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Playtime at review

Almost a third of negative reviews were written in the first 30 minutes, against 1 in 20 positives

30.6% of negative reviews come from players with under 30 minutes in the demo, against 4.7% of positives. The median negative is written at 60 minutes, the median positive at 223.

What to do

Make the first 30 minutes count

01Watch players who have never seen the game play its first 30 minutes, and note where they stop.
02Get players to the main thing as soon as your game allows, and keep text walls and tutorial chores out of the first 10 minutes.
03Read the negatives written in the first 30 minutes on their own: they say what turned players away before the game got going.

When people write their review

Share of each kind of review by playtime at review, all 25 demos, 11,401 reviews

Not recommended

Recommended

7.0%

under 10 min

0.9%

8.1%

10 to 15 min

0.9%

15.5%

15 to 30 min

2.9%

18.8%

30 to 60 min

13.0%

21.6%

1 to 2 h

18.1%

11.9%

2 to 4 h

15.9%

8.2%

4 to 8 h

15.2%

9.0%

8 h+

33.1%

Highlighted: the first 30 minutes. Under 15 minutes alone is 15.0% of negatives and 1.8% of positives.

Negatives written in under 30 minutes

The 5 demos with the highest share

HANDS OVER

69%

Haunted Paws

59%

Worst Class Ever

56%

No Body No Problem!

56%

Never Be Alone

49%

Example reviewsGave up in the first 30 minutes

3 real reviews

Not recommended17 minutes at review26 OctEnglish

Random event card from another player killed me before I even got to play a card. Had to sit there as the 4 others got to actually play the game. …

HANDS OVER demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended19 minutes at review29 found it helpful17 OctEnglish

I really hope that the fishing side of this fishing game is changed to something more engaging. Catching the 5 fish at the start of the tutorial almost made me stop right there. …

DREADMOOR demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended13 minutes at review13 found it helpful25 OctEnglish

My cousin and I logged into Never Be Alone looking for a zombie survival game to play together. About ten minutes later, we quit to the menu and uninstalled it and here I am. So that went well. …

Never Be Alone demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Kept playing after the review

One session can be enough: 98% recommended 10 Million Pixels, though only 4% played another hour after their review

"Kept playing" is the share of reviewers who played 60+ more minutes after reviewing. It ranged from 87% for Character House to 2% for Haunted Paws, which still scored 97% during Next Fest.

Stopping after the review isn't a bad sign on its own. Many players play a demo once, decide they've seen enough, and wishlist it. A party game is built for one session with friends, so a low share there can mean the demo did its job.

What to do

Know which kind of demo you shipped

01A party demo's job is the wishlist click inside that one session. Put the wishlist ask at the moment the round ends.
02A sim or idle demo works like early access with no price. Plan how the demo ends, with a cap or a save carried into the full game, so it doesn't give away the paid game.

A sticky demo earns positive reviews

You'd expect players who stay longer to like a demo more. What stands out is how big the change is. Reviews written in the first 30 minutes recommended the demo 61% of the time. Past 30 minutes that jumps to 88%, and after 10 hours it reaches 98%. Most of that change happens in the first hour. 49% of reviewers who recommended a demo kept playing for at least another hour after their review, against 13% of reviewers who didn't.

Recommended, by playtime at review

under 30 min

61%

+27

30 to 60 min

88%

1 to 2 h

90%

2 to 4 h

93%

4 to 10 h

95%

10 h+

98%

49%of reviewers who recommended a demo kept playing for at least another hour

13%of reviewers who didn't recommend it kept playing

Across the 25 demos, the share who kept playing tracks peak players (rank correlation 0.51) but barely tracks the score (0.29). Haunted Paws, 10 Million Pixels and Dumpster Gang all scored 96% or more across all their reviews, with fewer than 1 in 5 reviewers playing on. A short session plus a positive review is a demo that did its job.

40% and up

Character House

87%

just volleyball

76%

Legend of Defenders

74%

Probably Stolen

66%

Loftia

60%

Hellforged

59%

Deadzone Rogue 2

47%

Worst Class Ever

43%

Find The Needle

43%

Grr Grr Gnomes

42%

Abyssal Lapidary

41%

Mortuus

40%

Under 40%: mostly party and co-op

Meltdown Crew

39%

Never Wither

31%

HANDS OVER

23%

S.O.N.A.R.

17%

Dumpster Gang

16%

Never Be Alone

11%

DREADMOOR

10%

Fart Together

Dude, Trust Me

No Body No Problem!

Rip It!

10 Million Pixels

Haunted Paws

15 hProbably Stolen median playtime at review (896 min). 66% kept playing after reviewing.

460 minLegend of Defenders median playtime at review, in minutes. Find The Needle: 428.

43 to 69 minMedian at review for the party and co-op demos. The review marks the end of the session.

Language · Chinese vs English

Western demos can win back 15 points with Chinese players: the reasons were lobbies that wouldn't connect and partial translations

On the 18 demos where Chinese reviews were under 30% of the total, Chinese reviews were 75.0% positive, against 90.1% for English. On the 7 Chinese-heavy demos, Chinese reviews were 95.7% positive. So during this Next Fest, Chinese players weren't harsher across these demos, the gap was on the Western-made ones, and the reviews point to online play and translations players said were incomplete.

What to do

Test from China before you tick Chinese on the store page

01Test the co-op lobby and relay from mainland China before Next Fest, with a real player on a real connection.
02Leave the Chinese language tick off until the translation is complete. Players were more forgiving of a missing language than one the store page listed but the demo didn't have.
03Read your Chinese negatives on their own. Pooled across all 25 demos, Simplified Chinese scores 91.0%, so the gap only shows up game by game.

The gap inside single games

% of reviews that recommend the demo, Chinese (Simplified + Traditional) vs English

ChineseEnglishUnder each name: the main Chinese complaint

Deadzone Rogue 2

"just a DLC" of the first game, servers

4487

Dude, Trust Me

level 4 difficulty spike

5389

Never Be Alone

Traditional Chinese translation players said was incomplete

3964

S.O.N.A.R.

Players could not create a room

7796

Rip It!

mixed

7593

Loftia

server disconnects

7086

DREADMOOR

translations players said were incomplete

5267

Hellforged

balance

7892

Haunted Paws

can't join, no matchmaking

9097

Abyssal Lapidary

reverse case: English negatives are about AI

8290

30%40%50%60%70%80%90%100%

18 Western-made demos, pooled

Chinese reviews were under 30% of each demo's total

75.0%

Chinese
n=736

90.1%

English
n=3,803

All other languages on the 18 Western-made demos: 90.9%. On the 7 Chinese-heavy demos, Chinese reviews: 95.7% (n=2,346).

Cause 1

Can't connect or join a room from China

Grr Grr Gnomes

Deadzone Rogue 2

S.O.N.A.R.

Haunted Paws Loftia

Loftia

Cause 2

The store page says Chinese, the game only has part of the Chinese translation

Never Be Alone

DREADMOOR

Find The Needle

Example reviewsCan't connect or join a room

4 real reviews

Not recommended10 minutes at review23 found it helpful29 SepSimplified Chinese, translated

Can't connect to Steam the whole time. The optimisation is way, way off.

Original一直连接不上steam，优化差的不是一星半点

Grr Grr Gnomes demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended10 minutes at review14 OctSimplified Chinese, translated

Waited years for this. Called friends the moment the demo dropped, and we can't join a room online at all. Tried several times. Waiting for the full release.

Original期待了好几年 demo一出立马联系朋友游玩，结果完全不能联机进房间，好几次都不行，只能观望下正式版了

Haunted Paws demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended17 minutes at review6 OctSimplified Chinese, translated

Creating a room errors out straight away. Simply unplayable.

Original创建房间就直接出错，根本没法玩

S.O.N.A.R. demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended3 hours at review11 OctSimplified Chinese, translated

Where's the online play? Spent ages connecting and couldn't get in. Optimisation is poor too. A waste of time.

Original联机在哪呢，连半天进不去。优化还差，浪费时间

Deadzone Rogue 2 demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Example reviews"Supports Chinese", partly

4 real reviews

Not recommended39 minutes at review1 found it helpful26 OctTraditional Chinese, translated

The description says it supports Traditional Chinese, but there's basically none.

Original介紹寫著支援繁體中文，但基本上完全沒有。

Never Be Alone demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended11 minutes at review24 OctSimplified Chinese, translated

The Chinese translation is incomplete, and the UI is bad too.

Original汉化不完全，UI也烂。

Never Be Alone demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended2 hours at review26 OctSimplified Chinese, translated

Rating it badly. The Chinese translation is incomplete and the picture makes me dizzy. Daytime is fine, but at night there's no special system yet, it just strains your eyes. The fishing and the puzzles are both half-baked, and the quests are by the numbers, no fun in them.

Original评价不好，汉化不全，画面很晕，白天还好，一到黑夜目前没什么特殊系统就是伤眼钓鱼和解谜都比较半调子，任务按部就班感受不到什么乐趣。

DREADMOOR demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Not recommended31 minutes at review20 SepSimplified Chinese, translated

Downloaded it and it's all in English, no Chinese option.

Original下载都是英文没有中文选项

Find The Needle demoRead on Steam ↗︎

Across the week

Saturday brought almost as many reviews as opening day: 882 against 887

Only 30.3% of Next Fest reviews arrived in the first 48 hours (1,589 of 5,237). There was a second wave on the weekend: day 6, Sat 24 to Sun 25 October, had 882 reviews, almost level with the 887 on day 1. The daily score stayed flat at 88 to 92%.

What to do

Use the weekend

01Day 6 (Saturday) was almost as busy as day 1, so a patch on Thursday still reaches a full-size day of reviews.

Reviews per day of Next Fest, all 25 demos

In this chart, Next Fest week is the event's own 7 days, 17:00 UTC 19 Oct to 17:00 UTC 26 Oct. The 30.3% in the text above (days 1 and 2) and the tiles on the right use the same window. Rust at the bottom of each bar: share not recommended. Under each day: % recommended.

887

702

648

651

686

882

781

Day 1
Mon 1988.7%Day 2
Tue 2091.0%Day 3
Wed 2190.3%Day 4
Thu 2289.2%Day 5
Fri 2391.7%Day 6
Sat 2490.8%Day 7
Sun 2588.2%

12.3%of Next Fest reviewers had 1 or fewer Steam reviews. Those first-timers' reviews were 92.7% positive

89.6%positive from everyone else, 3 points below the first-timers

86.6%positive from reviewers with 20+ reviews, a few points lower

6 to 15%first-timer share on the 97 to 98% demos: 10 Million Pixels 6%, Probably Stolen 9%, just volleyball 14%, Haunted Paws 15%

Every demo, Next Fest week

All 25 demos, each with its free Review Map

In order of peak players, 1 to 25. The score and Next Fest reviews are Steam's own counts for Next Fest week, 17:00 UTC 19 Oct to 17:00 UTC 26 Oct. The top praise and the top complaint come from each demo's Review Map for 19 to 25 October.

A Review Map is free. It is the game's own page: its Steam score, its reviews in every language, and the latest reviews sorted into themes, showing what players praise and what they complain about.

1Our rank, 1 to 25Top 50 #1Where the demo peaked on Next Fest's top 50 most-played demos (peak players, Output Lag's tracker). The chart number and our 1 to 25 number drift apart because we skipped 16 demos in that chart's top 41 that didn't have enough reviews: 15 had no user reviews on the demo page yet, and Banana Airways had 41.

1 to 5Top 50 chart #1 to #6Skipped in this stretch: ArcheAge Chronicles #3

1Top 50 #1

Probably Stolen

97%Overwhelmingly Positive

625Next Fest reviews

39,696peak players

Hard to put downBugs and crashes

Open the Review Map →

2Top 50 #2

Worst Class Ever

88%Very Positive

124Next Fest reviews

27,684peak players

Great with friendsBugs and crashes

Open the Review Map →

3Top 50 #4

Character House

96%Very Positive

54Next Fest reviews

17,489peak players

Looks great

Open the Review Map →

4Top 50 #5

Find The Needle

89%Very Positive

255Next Fest reviews

9,711peak players

Hard to put downBugs and crashes

Open the Review Map →

5Top 50 #6

just volleyball

98%Overwhelmingly Positive

758Next Fest reviews

9,598peak players

Great with friendsBugs and crashes

Open the Review Map →

6 to 10Top 50 chart #8 to #14Skipped in this stretch: Frostrail #7, Melvor Idle 2 #9, Among Shadows #12

6Top 50 #8

Loftia

84%Very Positive

355reviews, 19 to 25 Oct

7,427peak players

Looks greatBugs and crashes

Open the Review Map →

7Top 50 #10

Abyssal Lapidary

87%Very Positive

349Next Fest reviews

4,766peak players

Hard to put downBugs and crashes

Open the Review Map →

8Top 50 #11

Fart Together

90%Very Positive

304Next Fest reviews

4,405peak players

Great with friends

Open the Review Map →

9Top 50 #13

Grr Grr Gnomes

83%Very Positive

54Next Fest reviews

2,585peak players

Great with friendsBugs and crashes

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10Top 50 #14

Meltdown Crew

92%Very Positive

197Next Fest reviews

2,404peak players

Great with friendsBugs and crashes

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11 to 15Top 50 chart #15 to #22Skipped in this stretch: ReBlade #17, Emberville #18, Dungeonbound #21

11Top 50 #15

No Body No Problem!

81%Positive

31Next Fest reviews

1,831peak players

Great with friendsPlayers questioned the balance

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12Top 50 #16

Deadzone Rogue 2

83%Very Positive

168Next Fest reviews

1,807peak players

Runs wellWanted something new

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13Top 50 #19

HANDS OVER

78%Mostly Positive

67Next Fest reviews

1,562peak players

Great with friends

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14Top 50 #20

Mortuus

92%Very Positive

478Next Fest reviews

1,533peak players

Great with friendsFrame rate and load times

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15Top 50 #22

Haunted Paws

97%Very Positive

196Next Fest reviews

1,518peak players

Great with friendsPlayers asked for solo play

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16 to 20Top 50 chart #24 to #34Skipped in this stretch: Banana Airways #23 (41 reviews), Debauchery & Magic #25, Wyldheart #26, Tropico 7 #27, Northgard Battlegrounds #29, DEADLINE #31, Can 'Em All #32

16Top 50 #24

Dumpster Gang

96%Very Positive

228Next Fest reviews

1,428peak players

Great with friendsBugs and crashes

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17Top 50 #28

10 Million Pixels

98%Very Positive

192Next Fest reviews

1,141peak players

Music and soundBugs and crashes

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18Top 50 #30

Legend of Defenders

82%Positive

17Next Fest reviews

1,056peak players

too few reviews for themes

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19Top 50 #33

Dude, Trust Me

84%Positive

31Next Fest reviews

981peak players

too few reviews for themes

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20Top 50 #34

Rip It! Card Collector

84%Very Positive

128Next Fest reviews

908peak players

Hard to put downSlow and grindy

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21 to 25Top 50 chart #36 to #41Skipped in this stretch: Stronghold 4 #35, Arctic Drive #39

21Top 50 #36

S.O.N.A.R.

89%Positive

36Next Fest reviews

853peak players

Great with friendsPlayers asked for solo play

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22Top 50 #37

Never Be Alone

66%Mixed

258Next Fest reviews

850peak players

Looks greatBugs and crashes

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23Top 50 #38

Hellforged

85%Positive

27Next Fest reviews

832peak players

too few reviews for themes

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24Top 50 #40

DREADMOOR

75%Mostly Positive

229Next Fest reviews

819peak players

AtmosphereSlow and grindy

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25Top 50 #41

Never Wither

91%Very Positive

56Next Fest reviews

752peak players

Looks greatPlayers questioned the balance

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✓

Before February's Next Fest

The checklist

Eight things I'd do with a demo before February, each based on what players said in October.

Ship the demo a few weeks earlyThe score before Next Fest was a good guide to the Next Fest score. See #1

Watch your top 10 helpful reviews dailyPatch the issue collecting votes during Next Fest. See #2

Fill in Steam's AI disclosureReviews calling out undisclosed AI drew about 25 times the votes of a typical negative. See #3

Win your comparison in 10 minutesReviewers judged DREADMOOR's fishing against Dredge's. See #4

Make the first 30 minutes count30.6% of negatives come in the first 30 minutes. See #5

Plan how the demo endsA cap or a carried-over save for sims and idlers. See #6

Test the lobby from ChinaA real player, a real connection, before Next Fest. See #7

Only tick languages you fully shipPlayers were more forgiving of a missing language than one the store page listed but the demo didn't have. See #7

Free

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Review Atlas

Every review analysed, in every language

For your own game or a competitor's, every review sorted into themes, and every theme checked against the reviews.

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Method and caveats

How we collected and counted the reviews

Next Fest: SteamDB's event page listed 7,164 playable demos at the start of Next Fest; Valve hasn't published an official count.
Selection: the top 25 demos by peak concurrent players during Next Fest, from Output Lag's peak-so-far at 16:00 Dublin time (UTC+0) on 26 Oct, cross-checked with Gamesberry. Peaks come from third-party trackers, not Valve.
Data: every review on each demo's app ID from Steam, all languages, 11,401 reviews, 13 Aug to 26 Oct. "Most helpful" is Steam's own ranking, taken on 26 Oct.
Next Fest week is the event's own 7 days, 17:00 UTC 19 Oct to 17:00 UTC 26 Oct, everywhere on this page. The demo cards are Steam's own counts for that window, read on 27 Oct, so a card can be a point away from the findings, which count the 26 Oct collection. Loftia's demo has since left Steam, so its card shows the collection's figures for 19 to 25 Oct.
Kept playing is measured at collection (26 October), so reviews written late in Next Fest had less time to add playtime.
A review isn't a player. Next Fest reviews per 1,000 peak players ranged about 100× between the demos, from 3.1 for Character House to 313 for Mortuus, reviewers skew towards strong opinions, and playtime is Steam's figure at the time of review.
Themes are regex counts in several languages and are approximate. The causes in #7 come from analysing all 184 Chinese negatives on the Western-made demos.
Allegations in reviews, including AI claims, are reviewer claims. We didn't verify them.
Small groups: 25 demos, so treat the correlations as a direction. We had no wishlist or conversion data.

What players said about Steam Next Fest's top 25 demos

These were the 25 most popular Next Fest demos

Score before vs during Next Fest

Days live before Next Fest vs median peak

The more votes a review has, the more likely it's negative

Where the top 10 is furthest from the score

AI complaints as a share of each demo's negatives

"Diablo, but…" scores well

"The new Dredge" gets tested

A sequel gets judged against its own original

When people write their review

Negatives written in under 30 minutes

What players are saying, in your inbox.

A sticky demo earns positive reviews

The gap inside single games

18 Western-made demos, pooled

Reviews per day of Next Fest, all 25 demos

Map your demo's reviews

Every review analysed, in every language

What players are saying, in your inbox.

How we collected and counted the reviews