50 Shooter Demos Later: The Best (and Worst) of Steam Next Fest

The latest Steam Next Fest has come and gone. The annual festival was bigger than in years past, and there were over 4,000 playable demos available. They ranged from snippets of upcoming AAA releases to hours-long sections of titles you’ve never heard of. It’s impossible to cover them all, but as Jump Dash Roll’s de facto shooter expert, I played roughly 50 that focus on blasting baddies. I skipped the obvious AAA heavyweights, ignored blatant shovelware, avoided co-op titles (because my mates were busy), and steered clear of top-down shooters (because they’re simply not my thing).

I still managed to enjoy a huge variety of games, and hate a couple of others. Not everything I played was good, and the vast majority were forgettable. 12 titles, however, were worth writing about. They’re all worth keeping an eye on, for one reason or another, as they release at various points in the future. My hard drive is full for the moment, and I’ve had my fill of hour-long snippets of upcoming games. But now you, me, and my editors know what titles to keep an eye on this year. 

Steam Next Fest remains one of the best ways to discover the next cult shooter — and the fastest way to see why most won’t make it.
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The Good

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Blood Vial - No announced release date

There are plenty of good boomer shooters on the market, but many feel somewhat same-y. Blood Vial, however, is unique, and also good. Its shooting and level design aren’t all that different from the swathes of other fantastic games inspired by the original DOOM. It’s a satisfying game, mostly because of how enemies explode into red mist. It also has a neat soundtrack, and runs well. Its demo was technically competent, and that in of itself is worth noting given how many I played that weren’t. 

However, Blood Vial has one mechanic I’ve never seen in any other video game. You start levels with only enough blood — which serves as the game’s health bar — to survive for 20 odd seconds. It continually drains as you move around, and you can spew some of it to create a pool that you can swim through to avoid combat. In order to survive, you have to shoot medieval-themed enemies and absorb their blood. That forces you to make precision shots rather than constantly being on the move. It doesn’t fundamentally change the age-old boomer shooter genre, but the mechanic spices it up. So, as a fan of titles with questionable graphics, I’m eagerly looking forward to playing it whenever it releases. And you should be, too, provided your taste in games is similar to mine. 

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Cargo Hunters - Available March 9 in Steam Early Access

The extraction shooter genre is overdone. There are countless entries to it, and only a few good ones. It seems like everyone and their cat has tried to make an Escape from Tarkov clone, and it’s rare for one to succeed. Cargo Hunters is just different enough from them to be worth playing, though. That’s because you play as a robot, it's a third-person game, and there isn’t a PvP mode.

Although at its core, its demo felt almost identical to Battlestate’s title, it was just different enough to be extremely enjoyable. It scratches the same itch as the established extraction shooters, but whereas many of them feel like using a cat’s claws, Cargo Hunters was akin to using a nice piece of wood. Without having to deal with other players, or a pointlessly convoluted progression system, it was essentially what a lot of fans have been wanting for years. It’s a less stressful, still somewhat realistic, game wherein you need to kill your enemies and extract with their stuff. Except there aren’t any 13-year-olds head eyes-ing you from across the map, and you can butcher your robot foes with an angle grinder and attach their limbs to your body.

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CICADAMATA - Planned release date: 2026

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‍SUPERHOT and Titanfall 2 are two of the most fun games I've ever played. So it should come as no surprise that CICADAMATA, which combines them, is easily one of the most enjoyable titles you can currently play. It’s an ultra fast-paced FPS where you’re forced to move across its small open maps at a blistering pace to complete simplistic objectives. Those environments exclusively use bright colours to tell you what you need to focus on, and the title’s narrative is simultaneously mind-bending and self aware. The result is, if its demo is anything to go by, going to be absolutely fantastic.

‍CICADAMATA is very much the sum of its parts. Which is about as much of a compliment as anyone can give a title inspired by two of the all time greats. Its demo was extensive and let you experience a surprisingly large chunk of the title. Not a single second of it was wasted, though. Its gunplay was second to none. All of its levels were similarly brilliant, and its visuals were surprisingly appealing. I’m not sure if it counts as a spiritual successor to two of my favourite games of all time, given that neither one of those franchises is technically dead. I am sure that it’s easily the best demo I played, and one you’ll want to check out when it releases.

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Galactic Vault - Planned release date: March 10

There’s an unsurprisingly large amount of great roguelikes on the market, and when Galactic Vault releases in a few days, it will no doubt be one of them. Like many of its contemporaries, it’s a fast-paced first person shooter where dying will end your run. It has absolutely excellent shooting mechanics, straightforward levels, and decent visuals. That means it’s inherently worth recommending, but Galactic Vault does something very few of its competitors do. It’s a first-person shooter, instead of a top-down bullet hell one.

The demo took full advantage of that camera perspective. It forces you to actually be in the frey, constantly scanning the environment for new threats while dealing out damage of your own. Although Galactic Vault isn’t exactly unique, it’s remarkably enjoyable. It takes what so many other roguelikes do well, and lets you experience them from a different perspective. It has a large roster of weapons, which you customise mid-raid by beating specific arenas, and a branching skill tree. It’s a fun way to kill a few minutes, or a few hours. And while it may not win any awards, I know I’m going to be playing it when I want a break from whatever my go-to shooter is when it releases. Hopefully you will, too.

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Starship Troopers: The Ultimate Bug War - Planned release date: March 16

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‍Starship Troopers is, without a doubt, my favourite movie of all time. There have been a few titles that attempted to replicate the magic of it, but none of them came close to being as stupidly fun as Starship Troopers: The Ultimate Bug War. That’s because it’s what fans of the film have been wanting for decades. The game is little more than a playable version of the iconic 90s flick. In it, you play as an expendable member of the Combat Infantry who is tasked with killing bugs, and that’s about it. You use weapons from the film franchise and NPCs shout out quotes from the movies as they try and fail to help you.

Like a lot of other games in this article, Starship Troopers: The Ultimate Bug War isn’t exactly unique, but it is fun. It’s super satisfying to shoot arachnids, call in air strikes, and run around the small open world map that was playable during its demo. The fact that you’re doing all that on Zegema Beach of all places only makes it better. The game will likely be little more than fan service for everyone who has an Alliance flag hanging in their bedroom. And if that doesn’t interest you, that’s fine. If it does, though…well, soon enough you’ll be able to experience it for yourself and decide. Because figuring things out for yourself is the only true freedom anyone has.

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The Divisive

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Barkour - Planned release date: 2026

Have you ever wondered what Metal Gear Solid would be like if you played as D Dog? Probably not, but if you’re curious, that’s more-or-less the premise of Barkour. Technically speaking, it’s not exactly a shooter, but instead a stealth action title where you play as a self-aware dog that, with the magic of science, can also do pretty much everything Snake can. The premise of the title is definitely strange, but the one level available in its demo was surprisingly good. You can use all sorts of neat gadgets, including a gun, and toy around with guards just like in the very best stealth games. Plus, again, you get to play as a sentient dog. 

That said, the reason I can’t fully recommend it is because the demo was definitely janky. Nothing about it was bad, or broken. However, its movement mechanics were awkward and its performance wasn’t ideal. The game’s AI guards were also absolute morons. I’m somewhat confident that those issues will be addressed before it launches, though. And if they are, I can see myself spending 10-odd hours playing as a dog that could very well be a Hideo Kojima character in a game that’s only slightly less strange than Metal Gear Solid V. 

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Red Tears: Angola - No announced release date

If you’ve ever played Far Cry 2, then you may as well have already played Red Tears. If you haven’t, well, the demo and consequently/hopefully full game isn’t very difficult to describe. It’s a hardcore single-player FPS set in war-torn Africa, where you’re tasked with scrounging an open map for information about the leader of an opposing mercenary faction and then killing them. The catch is that it’s a realistic game, at least in the sense that DayZ, STALKER and Arma are. You don’t need to worry about a food or water meter, but Red Tears has a lot of features that’ll drive you absolutely nuts if you’re looking for a casual experience. Your guns regularly jam, you can be bitten by poisonous snakes, and when you die, you have to escape an enemy prison camp instead of starting from scratch. Enemies are also a tad bullet spongey, and you can only carry a few magazines worth of ammunition at a time.

Red Tears’ demo was impressive, and I absolutely adored it. That’s because I spent a lot of time playing Far Cry 2, and keep the UPlay permanently installed on my PC in the hopes that Ubisoft remasters one of my favourite titles of all time. If you’re in the same proverbial boat as me, you’ll definitely want to play Red Tears whenever it releases. If you aren’t, though, you’ll probably hate it. Despite having satisfying gunplay and polished mechanics, it won’t be a game for everyone. Instead, it’ll be one made for people who know and love exactly what it offers.

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The Flinch: Unforgiven West - Planned release date: Q2 2026

For as much as I, and just about everyone else, enjoyed Red Dead Redemption 2, it was sorely missing the dueling mechanics of the first game. Thankfully, for everyone who enjoyed the quickdraw competitions, The Flinch: Unforgiven West is exclusively about skinning pig leather. You’re given a list of competitors you need to shoot, move your mouse to draw, aim and fire your six-shooter. If you do it fast enough, and draw after your foes, you gain honor. If you don’t, you die and have to replay the fight until you can.

‍The Flinch: Unforgiven West is extraordinarily simple. Its level includes a handful of gun battles, almost all of which play out identically. It’s fun to master, but there’s not a lot to it. What the demo lacked in gameplay, though, it more than made up for in style. Its visuals and music are straight out of a classic Western, and because of that, it’s a treat to play. The full game promises a whole host of interesting gameplay mechanics that influence how you play, though. If those are actually included, The Flinch: Unforgiven West will definitely be a great Western. If they don’t, though…well, it remains to be seen whether or not it’ll be my huckleberry soon enough. 

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Windrose - No announced release date

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The last thing I expected when I installed Windrose’s demo was to spend more than a day playing it. Almost everything else I tried only took a few hours to complete, but Windrose had more content than a few AAA games I’ve tried. And it was more polished than them. The game has a frankly insane scope. It starts out as a generic survival-em-up with a pirate skin, where you need to build a small camp and scavenge resources while crafting armor and weapons. Then you take control of a pirate ship, recruit pirates to crew it, and the title turns into Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. By the end of the demo, you can build full-on settlements while you work your way up the pirate hierarchy. 

It might not be the most shooting-heavy game, but those cannons make up for it. Everything in the demo worked exactly as it should. It didn’t have any bugs, its gameplay was ridiculously satisfying, and its visuals were gorgeous. It was far and away the best pirate game I’ve ever played, which is saying something given how many I’ve tried. It had a staggering amount of content, including optional online co-op. I would recommend it without a second thought, except I’m sceptical. Its developers haven’t made any other games, and I’ve been burned too many times by ambitious indie projects promising the moon and delivering a loading screen. It’s hard for me to believe someone finally made a game that so many gamers have been asking for. So, for your sanity and mine, I can’t fully recommend it. But I really hope I’m wrong about the game.

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The Deplorable

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WRAITH OPS - Planned release date: March 12

Have you ever wanted to play Escape From Tarkov: Arena, or Arena Breakout: Infinite’s 5v5 mode, but didn’t actually want to have a fun time? If you did, or do, WRAITH OPS is the game for you. There’s no good way to say this, so I’ll just cut to the chase. It’s almost identical to both of those games, with a little bit of World War 3 spliced in. And it’s absolutely awful. Strictly speaking, it’s not the worst title I’ve ever played. Its guns do in fact shoot virtual bullets, it has maps, and installing it won’t cause your PC to explode. But, in case it wasn’t obvious, it’s almost comically uninspired. The game does literally nothing different from the swaths of other free-to-play shooters that masquerade as being realistic because they don’t have HUDs. And almost everything about it is somehow worse than whatever slop Geoff Keighley recommended at last year’s game awards.

‍WRAITH OPS’ weapons aren’t satisfying to use. Its visuals have the HDR filter turned up to 120, and its progression system is painfully bland. It also has latency issues, and unsurprisingly, not enough players to easily find a match. It isn’t a fun game in the slightest. It’s the worst entry into a genre filled with absolute crap, and there’s absolutely no reason to play it. Unless you’ve already been banned from every other free to play shooter, there’s no reason to install it. You’d have a better time watching a Twitch streamer play Call of Duty, and I’ve never typed that sentence before in my life despite how many absolutely awful games I’ve played.  

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Open Robot - Planned release date: 2026

I’m genuinely not sure if Open Robot is taking the piss or not. Not too long ago, MindsEye released, and just about everyone hated it. The game was a buggy, boring mess that had almost no redeeming qualities. It’s one of the most woeful games ever made. Open Robot is almost identical to it, but somehow even worse. It’s a third-person shooter with a bland narrative, an uninspired world and awful shooting. The visuals are bland, it runs terribly, and its music is annoying. The demo attempted to discuss a couple of serious issues, just like MindsEye, and fails to do so because of how distractingly awful it is.

If the demo was, in fact, trying to make fun of MindsEye, I suppose that’s fair enough. If it isn’t, though…I feel bad for its developer. I don’t like to rag on things for the sake of it, but Open Robot’s demo was awful. It wasn't even so bad it was good. It was just bad. Avoid it at all costs. Or don’t, and hope its developer somehow turns it into something playable, which’ll happen around the same time you can afford a house while working an average job.

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Did I forget to include your favourite demo from the fest? Are you one of the three people who enjoyed the demos I hated, or hated the demos I loved? Let us know your thoughts on X and/or Facebook.