Steam Next Fest is coming back in October with more early looks at games on the way

Valve have announced that the Steam Next Fest is coming back again in October, bringing even more demos for PC players to enjoy, but this time there is a big change.

In Next Fests of yore, games that were included had to be releasing within a set time frame, so no dropping a demo for a game that was years away, but that rule is no more. With the October event and likely the ones beyond it, any game maker can release a demo for their game, no matter what the release date happens to be.

The flipside to all that goodness though is that only one demo can be released for the game, so if Jim Bob’s House Painting Simulator is set to release in 2025, they can release a demo as part of this upcoming Steam Next Fest, but they will then not be permitted to release another one, in any future event. Demo’s released outside of the event are unaffected however.

Now you have read about the changes, but you want to know when it is happening, thankfully you have time to remove any old demos from your PC as this one won’t begin until October 4. The dates for the USA are October 3rd at 10am til October 10th, so that means these times for us, just be aware daylight savings will be back on then.

• AEDT: 4am

• ACDT: 4:30am

• AEST: 3am

• ACST: 3:30am

• AWST: 1am

• NZST: 6am

We don’t know what games will be in the event, but given the last few have had games from almost every genre, there is sure to be something to delight any gamer.