The is back again for the second time this year, with some big games from the last few weeks of announcements and many others besides. Let's give our favorites the flowers they deserve!

Some of the most notable participants this time around include:

• , CAPCOM's modern revival of their PlayStation action franchise.

• , a mixed-perspective platformer where you're navigating both in 3D and 2D simultaneously.

• , a first-person soulslike from the developers of the Ghostrunner series.

• , a new Sword Art Online JRPG that has you set out as a brand-new character instead of following the show's protagonists.

• , Splitgate developer 1047 Games' take on Titanfall's multiplayer combat.

A few others that caught my eye have been:

• , an oddball driving game from Strange Scaffold where you run over people to have them reincarnate as monsters in another world and immediately becoming fodder to power up a hero in training.

• , a pleasant adventure game where you run around locations taking photos and completing tasks for the locals you meet along the way.

• , the odd Lovecraft adaptation by Umurangi Generation developers ORIGAME DIGITAL where you witness eldritch horrors from the perspective of a penguin.

• , a chill, co-op offroading sim from the developer of art of rally and Absolute Drift.

• , which does the explaining for me.

Hey , I’m a solo dev making Duo Heli Combat. The demo is one mission: intercept an enemy bomber. Play solo or in local co-op on the same screen - pick your weapons, call in reinforcements, and decide how to approach the fight.

What’s in the demo:

• Intercept mission with tactical freedom (choose objectives, call allied units)

• Build your own weapon loadout - unlock machine guns, rockets and mix them to your style

What’s coming later (the heart of the game):

• A unique co-op mode where two helicopters are tethered by a fuel hose - forced synchronisation, shared fuel, walker boss fights - missions impossible alone

• Full campaign (prisoner rescues, convoys, base captures) and 1v1 PvP

I kept the demo focused so players could nail the basics first. I’d love feedback on how the helicopter feels, if the loadout choices work, and how local co-op plays for you.

• Steam (demo):

• Trailer:

• Press kit:

Appreciate any feedback - thanks for giving it a shot!

Strange Seed is a bit like Spore's creature stage, but instead of a simulator, it's an RPG with a semi-linear adventure, characters, a story, and a lot of challenges to adapt to!

We just finished a huge (but free) Ocean stage expansion where you can swim around and pick up weird DNA sources like jellyfish, sea urchins, squids, sharks and something freaky in the deep abyss.

Also, Steam gave the game a Daily Deal slot today so it's 30% off right now, the highest discount to date.

Strange Seed comes from a wish that Spore had been more like an older creature evolution game, E.V.O.: Search for Eden.

Evolved parts should actually change gameplay and be used for specific tasks, for instance:

• Become small enough to crawl through a tiny tunnel

• Become big enough to push a heavy boulder

• Balance your wings with stamina bonuses to get through a platforming segment

• Load up on shells and spikes to become a defensive creature, or claws and teeth for a glass cannon build

Thanks for reading!

Hello,

I am one of the devs of Blighthold, an upcoming 2D city builder/survival game. Blighthold has Lovecraftian, Dieselpunk and WW1 aesthetics, and the gameplay is heavy on choosing between multiple strategies and juggling through moral dilemmas. We plan to release the full game on Steam, in 3rd quarter of 2026(Demo is out now). We appreciate any feedback.

Steam Page:

Gameplay Trailer:

Hello r/Games! Today, I am showing you our latest Driving game, Driving Test Simulator. You are enrolled in a Driving School, and your goal is to pass all the tests and get the License. The Game offers both Manual and Automatic transmission.

Features:

1. 80+ Driving Tests.

2. 6 Cars, including EVs, Jeep, and Sports Car.

3. Dynamic Weather with realistic rain.

4. 6 Different Test types like Parking, Driving and Even Stunts (they are hard!!)

5. Both LHD and RHD from British and Japanese players specifically.

6. Steering Wheel Support.

Trailer video:

Steam (demo playable now):

You can support us by wishlisting the game or providing us with your valuable feedback!

Thanks for checking us out!

Cheat Death is a dark strategic roguelite where your only opponent is the Grim Reaper himself! You play dice poker against Death: every hand is a risk, every roll can save or end you.

If you like: Slay the Spire’s deckbuilding tension + Inscryption’s creepy cabin dread + dice poker (pairs, straights, full houses) — this one’s for you. 

Key features:

• Dice poker as combat – Build hands to deal damage, heal, or stack bonuses. 

• Gamble with your soul – push your luck for better rolls, but one bad hand can be fatal.

• Unlock cursed perks – each run changes your strategy.

• Horror atmosphere – Candles, shadows, and Death who knows your odds better than you do. 

It’s a roguelite. It’s horror. It’s dice poker with Death himself.

Demo is available now on Steam:

Watch the Latest Trailer:

I’d love to hear your feedback — does the dice poker combat feel fair? Is the risk/reward balanced? Try the demo and let me know what you think.

Thanks for your time and support.

Hello ! I love games that give you a genuine feeling of discovery and respect your intelligence, so I've been making a game just like that for the past three years. It's called Timebound and it's a rule-discovery puzzle adventure with no handholding, you're just dropped into a world and left on your own to explore. My wife Patrycja makes all the art, and our friend Fabien creates music and sound. We have a demo that's already packed with content and layers of secrets to explore. While Outer Wilds and The Talos Principle are the biggest inspirations, players often say that playing reminds them of The Witness, Taiji and Tunic.

Features:

- "Aha!" moments - puzzles are designed to seem impossible at first glance. You need to level up your brain to solve them.

- NO upgrades, NO unlocks, NO items - the only progression is your knowledge of the world

- Meta puzzles - "jailbreak" elements of one puzzle to "cheat" solving another one

- "Rabbit hole" secrets - is that just a piece of decoration or does it have a secret use?

- Insight Hints - we have hints that are easier versions of the same puzzle - they don't spoil the solution!

- "New game plus" achievements - when you beat the demo, start a new game to find alternative solutions to puzzles

Trailer with gameplay and no spoilers:

Steam (demo playable now):

The demo's already in 13 languages and runs great on Steam Deck, with a full release planned in 2027. And if you finish the demo in 40 minutes or so - trust me, there's a lot more hiding in there.

I'd also love to invite you to our community on Discord where we help players find all the secrets, share feedback, speedrun, and playtest new content. Let me know what you think!

Disclaimer : since it wasn't clear to everyone , I'll try to make it shorter.

I don't play these games before listing them. I don't claim to offer any expert opinion either, I just skim through SteamDB to check games that release every day, take the time to read the pitch and the reviews when there are any, watch trailers and do a bit of digging around online. This takes me 6 to 7 hours to do.

My Picks

🇧🇪 , €7, demo available, 64 positive reviews out of 64 (100.0%). Relaxing musical puzzle. You compose melodies in a magical music box to activate platforms and guide a swan back to its nest, all wrapped in a poignant story about family and grief.

🇧🇷 , €13, demo available, 8 positive reviews out of 8 (100.0%). Open world adventure. You play as a shepherdess who, with her faithful dog, guides and protects her magical flock through ruins and temples, wielding a sword and solving puzzles. The vibe the concept and its aesthetic give off is super cosy and makes you really want to jump in.

🇺🇸 , €7, demo available, 69 positive reviews out of 75 (92.0%). Tower defense / strategy. It's grosso modo Dungeon Defenders in isometric 3D, or a less frustrating They Are Billions with a nice look. During the passive phase, you build your defenses on set (and limited) spots, and during the active phase, you can either watch your towers take out enemies on their own or jump into battle with a hero chosen from 3 races that each give different powerups. About 3 hours of campaign, but decent replayability (plenty of reviews clocking 30h+).

Multi

, €5, 22 positive reviews out of 24 (91.7%). Co-op physics platformer, a new spin on Chained Together. Two players carry a grumpy, demanding old king on a stretcher through medieval parkour courses riddled with traps, managing the physics to keep him from falling off.

Chill

🇹🇭 , €10, demo available, 74 positive reviews out of 75 (98.7%). Cosy simulation. You run a flower shop putting together bouquets for slightly quirky customers, while a fairy flies around making a mess.

2D Platformer

, €10, 15 positive reviews out of 17 (88.2%). Metroidvania with 90s graphics. As Captain Grisham, you explore a massive planet and blast its hostile inhabitants, from war machines to failed biological experiments, to avenge humanity. According to reviews, a lot of care has gone into the details, both in the environments and in the way you modify and customize your weapon as you progress.

Roguelike

🇺🇸 , €10, demo available, 23 positive reviews out of 23 (100.0%). Roguelite vampire survivors-like. A vampire survivor set in a modern city where parts of the scenery are destructible: puddles you can electrify, gas you can ignite, cars you can blow up.

🇵🇱 , €3, 21 positive reviews out of 21 (100.0%). Roguelite vampire survivors-like. A vampire survivor in isometric 3D with a cel-shaded world. At €3, worth a shot if you're into the genre.

🇫🇮 , €4, 195 positive reviews out of 201 (97.0%). Roguelite twin stick shooter. I see it as a kind of space version of Binding of Isaac. You survive in shifting space arenas, mod your weapon and fuse abilities to turn your ship into a killing machine and smash alien ogres. There seems to be a great variety of weapons and modifiers, the gameplay looks really solid, though the environments are pretty generic pixel art. Forgivable since the whole thing is the work of a solo dev.

🇨🇭 , €5, 8 positive reviews out of 8 (100.0%). Roguelite survivors-like. You fight creatures on fairly small maps while alternating between two weapons (melee + ranged) simultaneously and fine-tune your build to become the master of purgatory. One particularly detailed review lets me elaborate: the game has cut out all the filler that artificially pads playtime in this genre. 10 different characters, 5 weapons, 14 passive skills, a meta progression that makes you stronger over time, and most importantly 8 maps to play on that also define your session length. Some maps are designed to be played in just 3 minutes. the dev understood that not everyone has 2 hours to spare.

FPS

, €15, demo available, 64 positive reviews out of 65 (98.5%). Retro FPS (boomer shooter). You play as Abby, a captured angel making her escape. It's broadly Doom with Half-Life 1 level design, but with characters and weapons drawn in a 2010s Flash game style.

Adventure / Exploration

🇺🇸 , €15, demo available, 71 positive reviews out of 71 (100.0%). Dungeon crawler RPG. Three kobolds hiding inside a trench coat explore a dungeon in first person, turn by turn, to become heroes: they pick up shiny things and eat everything they can get their claws on. Everything is hand-drawn in a style that's childlike without being painful to look at.

🇳🇱 , €0, 24 positive reviews out of 24 (100.0%). Cosy adventure / pawing-around game. A free little game made by students for a school project, haven't seen one of those in a while :). You fall into the Catworld through an interdimensional portal and have to catch cats by doing favors for Ponpon, the Cat Café owner, to find your own cat and get back home. Everything in the game is adorable, including its reviews. There's even a dev's dad dropping by to cheer his son on. adowable.

🇧🇷 , €6, 10 positive reviews out of 10 (100.0%). Exploration adventure. You explore the jungle in search of Blendkins, master-of-disguise creatures that everyone wants as pets. A game that tries to make players aware that animals are living beings :).

Puzzle / Reflection

🇫🇷 , €25, 318 positive reviews out of 348 (91.4%). Meta point-and-click. You help Sherlock Holmes and Watson (previously seen in There Is No Game) solve a twisted case by grabbing, pulling and stretching the elastic world of the game, in a delightfully unhinged adventure where time travel takes you through the stages of the game's creation.

🇧🇷 , €7, demo available, 37 positive reviews out of 38 (97.4%). Roguelite puzzle. Locked in a kitchen, you arrange food items on a Tetris-style grid to prepare bento boxes that satisfy a demonic entity lurking in the vents, juggling combos and multipliers to try and make it out. Same visual style as Cloverpit with very similar mechanics.

Simulation / Management

🇬🇧 , €8, demo available, 113 positive reviews out of 122 (92.6%). Factorio-style automation sim. You build and scale up culinary production chains to feed hungry monsters threatening to devour the world, managing weird ingredients across ever-more-spaghettified factories (get it?). 2D pixel art viewed from the side. The onboarding is rough, expect to spend some time in the tutorial.

🇺🇸 , €15, 127 positive reviews out of 142 (89.4%). Cozy cooking deckbuilder. You grow and cook ingredients during the day to craft hero cards that go into battle, with a trick-taking system inspired by belote and whist rather than the usual energy management of deckbuilders.

, €0, 15 positive reviews out of 15 (100.0%). Casual / arcade. It's exam week and your students have formed a cheating syndicate. Monday through Friday, catch them in the act and fail them, spotting increasingly creative cheating methods. Free and fun.

🇦🇺 , €5, demo available, 61 positive reviews out of 63 (96.8%). Papers Please-style simulation / puzzle. You work as a trading card inspector for the Habubis Corporation. Your job: evaluate, verify and appraise hundreds of hand-drawn cards, while untangling a story of friendship, industrial espionage and murder. Not quite at Papers Please's level of narrative quality, but still a solid gaming experience.

Horror

, €2, 181 positive reviews out of 201 (90.0%). Underwater horror / exploration. You pilot a small submarine into a deep ocean trench to investigate a thermal anomaly, and uncover the ruins of a lost civilization that isn't quite dead yet. Completable in a single sitting, roughly 30-40 minutes.

🇸🇪 , €15, demo available, 26 positive reviews out of 28 (92.9%). Narrative point-and-click / winter noir. You play as photographer Charlotte Gray, arriving at an abandoned logging camp in Alaska for her book, and as she digs through the place she gradually unearths the tragic story of those who once lived there. The game is globally praised but often criticized for its price relative to its short runtime (3-4h), with an unsatisfying ending that slightly undermines an otherwise strong experience.

🇯🇵 , €12, demo available, 13 positive reviews out of 13 (100.0%). Cute, creepy and clever pixel-art adventure. Turned into a mouse upon moving into an apartment building, you explore the haunted building to save its residents from their inner demons by hunting the ghosts that gnaw at them. A story that will take you 6-8 hours to finish.

, €0, 18 positive reviews out of 18 (100.0%). Horror / puzzle. You play as Luis Edno, an audio analyst who has to decode scrambled enemy communications by ear, piecing together clues, except the tapes are hiding something else entirely. A game about paranoia and auditory hallucinations.

Gameplay Trailer:

I’m the solo developer behind SPACERO: ORIGINS, and I recently released the demo on Steam.

SPACERO: ORIGINS is a top-down space exploration game focused on combat, progression, mining, trading, ship upgrades, and discovery.

Players explore a procedurally generated galaxy, encounter different factions, gather resources, upgrade their ship, and fight increasingly dangerous enemies and bosses.

The current demo includes:
- Real-time space combat
- Planet scans & blackhole physics
- Mining and resource collection
- Trading
- Ship upgrades & customization
- Multiple factions
- Boss battle
- Procedurally generated galaxies
- Save/load progression

The demo is currently available on Steam and will be participating in Steam Next Fest.

Steam Demo:

I’d genuinely love feedback on the gameplay, progression, exploration, visuals, balance, or anything else that stands out while playing.

Thanks for taking a look. I’ll be around to answer questions and discuss development.

Hi all, I'm making Exark, a retina-burning engine builder / auto-battler set on a giant flying ark! You build buildings, hire crew, and collect relics to generate resources and morale, while staving off attacks from sky-pirates.

Exark is essentially an inventory management autobattler at its core, with a few key differences - it's a purely single-player game, and borrows a lot of elements from 4X games - unlike most autobattlers, a purely peaceful, builder approach is viable.

If that sounds interesting, please give the demo (launched just ahead of Next Fest) a try! Any feedback and suggestions are always appreciated.

It seems that Xbox are in the midst of yet another round of layoffs, this time with Ninja Theory, Double Fine and Combustion Games. It appears that this time, the studios themselves appear to be trying to negotiate themselves out of this fate by going independent, similar to how Toys For Bob are currently. This makes me wonder, how many successful creators are there which successfully managaed to go independent? I can only think of a few.

Playtonic: These former Rare developers formed a brand new studio in order to focus on games that fans enjoyed from Rare in the past. The original Yooka Laylee launched in a pretty rough state, but Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair was a phenmonal 2D platformer, and Yooka Replaylee released last year, and made the first game a far greater experience. They are releasing a new Yooka Laylee kart spinoff soon, and I hope to death it will be a blast.

Artplay: Koji Igarashi split from Konami thanks for them shutting down all his pitches for new Castlevania games, so he turned to Kickstarter in order to fund Bloodstained Ritual of the Night. Of all the 2013-15 Kickstarter projects that promised spiritual successors from legacy developers, Bloodstained was easily the project that turned out the best. So much so that a sequel is currently in development and is supposed to release this year (although I wouldn't be shocked if its been delayed to next year).

Too-Kyo games: Danganronpa writer Kazutaka Kodaka and other Spike Chunsoft developers all left the company in order to form a new studio, where they released many projects (not just games). Some of these releases were more succesful than others, and the studio were actually under threat of bankruptcy during the development of The Hundred Line: Last Defence Academy, however the success of that title means that is no longer likely to happen in the near future.

Hi folks, Chubby Weevil here, Australia-based solo dev of Fruit Fetish. The demo is now available on Steam ready for Next Fest! Have a crack and let me know what you think!

Youtube gameplay trailer:

Steam link: 

Fruit Fetish is an active incremental where you take the role of Pearsly, a slightly dim-witted purpose grown pear created by an ethically and morally questionable company, Fetish Fruit Co. You are tasked with managing the latest franchise and making another billion dollars for corporate. If you succeed, you may just secure a position in the company retirement program.

The main gameplay loop revolves around working against the clock to harvest, prepare and serve a growing horde of hungry customers Fetish Fruit, which are genetically modified self-aware fruits that love nothing more than being devoured.

As you earn money, you can reinvest it into genetic enhancements and shop upgrades to further optimise your abilities and management skills in a satisfying incremental fashion. The game explores a range of existential themes using satire, crude humour and a cute/comfy pixel art style. Come and explore this corporate piss-take and see if you can make a real difference.

SURVIVE THE MACHINE

BABYLON 3013 is an infinite, systems-driven third-person shooter sandbox set inside a hyper-dense, vertical dystopian metropolis. There are no safe havens, no apocalyptic ruins, and no scripted saviors—only a highly sophisticated, functioning corporate empire designed to bleed the lower classes dry. You don’t save the world here. You outsmart the system, manipulate the economy, and fight to see tomorrow.

The Philosophy: Architecture of an Endless Sandbox

Our development strategy for Early Access focuses entirely on polishing the core simulation loops to absolute perfection. We are engineering a modular, reactive world framework. While long-term development roadmaps will introduce deep, branching RPG faction storylines and complex narrative quest structures inspired by classics like the Skyrim and Fallout series, this Early Access launch is built for the hardcore sandbox purist. The environment, the economy, and your own degrading body are your primary antagonists.

CORE EARLY ACCESS SYSTEMS

1. Socio-Economic Warfare (The Cost of Living)

In Babylon, capitalism is weaponized. Money isn't just for buying bigger guns; it is your literal lifeline.

• The Corporate Subscription Drain: Your health insurance, tactical optics, high-tier ammunition processing, and clean oxygen access are tied to recurring daily subscriptions. Run out of credits, and your corporate providers will remotely throttle your hardware or lock down your safehouses.

• Predatory Banking & Debt Collection: Take out street loans to make rent, and you trigger an adaptive tracking matrix. Leave your debt unpaid, and the city’s automated repo-drones and persistent high-tier corporate hit teams will track your biometric profile across districts in real-time.

2. Biological & Cybernetic Degradation

The more machine you become, the harder your body fights to survive itself.

• Neural Wear & Fragmentation: Overclocking your high-fidelity tactical implants or enduring high-stress firefights fragments your brain's operating system. Suffer heavy data fragmentation, and your HUD elements (ammo counters, maps, reticles) will glitch and fail until you pay a back-alley Netrunner to scrub your drive.

• Anti-Rejection Dependency: Your biological components naturally reject street-level chrome. You must constantly source expensive immunosuppressants. Defaulting to cheap, bootleg alternatives will alter your DNA, permanently degrading maximum cellular vitality.

3. Hyper-Realistic Interaction & Tactical Combat

Built on next-gen motion matching, traversal and gunplay feel heavy, responsive, and grounded. Every piece of industrial scrap you harvest, or door you breach, triggers physically accurate Inverse Kinematics animations—your character reaches out and dynamically grips the world exactly where you point. But tracking targets under pressure has a mental toll; maintaining a tactical aim state burns through your sanity and focus, forcing you to pick your battles wisely.

4. A Living Capitalist Matrix (The Dynamic Market)

The economy across the city's vertical districts reacts dynamically to player choices. Sabotage a corporate sector’s power transformer to dim the surveillance cameras for a high-stakes heist, and the local black market prices for weaponry will instantly shift due to the newly created security vacuum. Every action destabilizes the local infrastructure, spawning completely emergent survival scenarios.

THE ROADMAP TO A FULL RPG

By establishing a flawless systemic survival loop during Early Access, we are building an unshakeable foundation. Once the endless simulation loop is completely ironed out alongside the community, we will gradually deploy our grand vision: a massive, choice-driven narrative campaign featuring overlapping political factions, destiny-altering choices, and a massive web of deep scripted missions.

Welcome to the underbelly. Pack light, keep your credits up, and watch your chrome.

Steam Page link :

Gameplay :

Join a fast-paced top-down team shooter with limited direct enemy contact. Take a harpoon, aim and tear enemies apart! Allies can also be torn apart, so beware...

 [Demo] | 

Select a robot for your pilot and harpoon enemies to your side where you can easily finish them off with your teammates. Wanna play RAMBO? Boost your damage and health then rush to the other side! Not actually advisable. Usually causes painful but fast death.

'memba PudgeWars? This is it now.

• Updated mechanics

• Fast matches

• No HOOK (just kidding, renamed it into Harpoon)

Planned Release: Summer 2026

Hey everyone!

I'm a solo developer working on Fairtravel Battle CCG, a collectible card game that's very accessible and player-friendly, it's the culmination of almost 9 years of hard work and it will be participating on the Steam Next Fest next week!

Information and Links

• Steam Page:

• Game State: Beta

• Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS

• Trailer:

• Release Date: July 31st

• Release Type: Early Access

An indie CCG that focuses on fun and is not a live service game

• Single purchase price, no microtransactions for cards

• Duel, draft, deckbuild, raid! Lots of game modes to experiment and enjoy

• Huge focus on fun and being well balanced, focused on back and forth interactions rather than making things grow bigger every turn

• A super cool resource system! An unique take on the common "color system" that a lot of games use: No mana screw/flood, and huge deckbuilding potential!

• Play offline, online, host your own servers, steam lobbies. Play with friends or a mix of CPU players and other people!

• Get more content through modding!

• Will never shut down: No account system, minimal optional online "services" for remote game data updates that don't use any personal data

What makes Fairtravel Battle CCG special? Why a new CCG in 2026?

Firstly, I'd like to clarify that I'm really not a PR person. I hate sounding robotic or like I just want to sell a product, and I apologize if I sound that way. I just want others to enjoy FTB because I truly feel it's a great game and that it offers something a lot of people have been wanting.

I've thought the T/CCG market has been quite expensive even way back in 2017 when I started working on FTB: Typical decks on most games would cost 300+ euros and you aren't guaranteed that a deck fits you or will last for the whole 3 months before a new card set would come out.

Now in 2026, the entire hobby feels so incredibly expensive that it's practically pricing me out - A booster box shouldn't cost the price of a midrange phone!

Thankfully I kept working and iterating on FTB this entire time, and I feel it's in a really good spot! I didn't just focus on the monetization aspect, I wanted to make a T/CCG that's legitimately fun to play. More and more people have voiced how much they love it and how they love that it's the sorta game where they don't feel they're missing out because there's no FOMO or anything of the sorts, and a lot of people really love how it plays!

I just want to make something that's a break from the market's excessive monetization and "paywalls" that prevent people like me from playing properly, as with T/CCGs the cards are the hardest thing to get and it can be unbearably unfun to have to play with something you stitched together while facing top meta decks. Things like topdecking, one-sided matches, being unable to play due to lack of in-game resources (like mana screw/flood or just not drawing the cards you need) are all things I tried to handle in FTB to make matches flow well and just... generally be fun!

There's a demo on the steam page if you're curious to see how it plays! I'd love to hear any feedback you guys would like to share, and I hope you enjoy the game!

Thank you all for your time and have a great sunday! :)

LabyTrip Spirit is an adventure puzzle-action game about a soul lost in the labyrinths of the afterlife.
. Work with friends to guide the spirit to ascension, or vie with other players toward the abyss. the gameplay trailer here. Be watchful, shrewd, and swift as you make your way through the changing labyrinths of limbo.

Core mechanics:

Dodge dangerous traps
Move labyrinth walls
Collect artifacts
Use special abilities wisely