Here Are 5 More Of The Best Demos To Try During Steam Next Fest
Even more great PC games are free to try this week.
Sure, I’ve already covered six of the best demos I found at Steam Next Fest this year. But the thing about Next Fest is there are just so many demos you can’t possibly find every one worth playing right at the start. So halfway through this season’s event, I’m rounding up another batch of the best demos I’ve played, this time featuring tower defense, card games, and old-school RPGs.
Here are five more of the best demos to check out during the October 2025 Next Fest.
Mosaic of the Strange
A massive, meditative Picross puzzle meets supernatural mystery in Mosaic of the Strange.
Developer Mark Ffrench’s Proverbs was one of the biggest surprises of the year — a fairly straightforward blend of Picross and Minesweeper that’s utterly captivating despite just being about clicking on thousands of little colored squares. Mosaic of the Strange looks even more fascinating, adding a whole point-and-click mystery that plays out as you complete puzzles. That makes its demo incredibly relaxing even as its supernatural mysteries unfold, an effect that seems like it will only be more satisfying in the full game’s massive puzzle.
Winter Burrow
You’ll split your time between fighting for survival and knitting at home in Winter Burrow.
I’m of the opinion that most games would be improved if you could play as a cute little mouse, and Winter Burrow makes me more sure of that than ever. In this survival game, you play as a mouse who’s returned home to your burrow (after your family’s move to the city went disastrously), only to find it in disarray and your aunt who was supposed to be taking care of it missing.
The Winter Burrow demo strikes a nice balance between cozy and challenging, letting you mostly collect resources and craft new items at your own pace, but also requiring you to keep yourself fed and warm to survive. It’s all done in an art style that nails the look of a picture book, which fits its style of woodland adventure perfectly.
Monsters Are Coming!
Monsters Are Coming challenges you to build your own character alongside a mobile fortress to repel enemies.
It seems like every third demo in Next Fest is another take on Vampire Survivors, and for someone who’s never found its endless automatic combat compelling, that can be a real drag. That made it all the more surprising when I found myself clicking with Monsters Are Coming, a combination of Vampire Survivors-like and tower defense.
Monsters Are Coming pits your character against endless waves of enemies with only the most pitiful of weapons and demands that you create a build out of a randomly selected battery of upgrades to make it through. But on top of that, you’re also escorting a constantly moving city on wheels. In addition to your own upgrades, you earn new additions to add to your city which can either fire at enemies or offer buffs, with bonuses that make you consider where you place them relative to each other for the full effect. The result is the first Vampire Survivors-inspired game I actually want to revisit.
Verho: Curse of Faces
Verho is a fresh take on its old-school RPG inspirations.
Lately there’s been a resurgence of games in the style of 1990s and early 2000s first-person RPGs, and Verho: Curse of Faces already seems up there with the best of them. Taking clear inspiration from FromSoftware’s King’s Field games, Verho takes place in a bizarre fantasy setting where donning a mask is the only protection from a deadly curse. Its demo features combat that’s strategic but still fast-paced and a world as strange and compelling as you’ll find in any RPG. With gorgeous lo-fi graphics and a large assortment of spells and weapons, Verho feels like the best kind of throwback, paying homage to retro RPGs while iterating on them at the same time.
Moonsigil Atlas
Moonsigil Atlas finds entirely new strategic potential in its novel form of card battler.
Moonsigil Atlas is one of the biggest surprises from this Next Fest. There are probably more roguelike card games than you could play in a lifetime at this point, and even as a fan of the genre, I’ve found myself getting a little tired of them. But Moonsigil Atlas finds a way to feel genuinely new, even in an incredibly popular style of game.
In Moonsigil Atlas, each of your cards summons a geometric shape made of connected triangles, which you need to slot into a grid in front of you. You can play as many cards per round as you want, provided there’s enough room for them to fit, which opens up a whole new layer of strategy as you rotate new pieces to fit and find upgrades that let you physically change their shape. Plus, the whole thing is based around lunar magic, so you get to read incredible instructions like “destroy the moons to claim their power” while you play as a bonus.
