Key facts
- Steam Next Fest opened on October 19, 2026, with 8,202 playable demos, a figure more than double last year's event.
- The sheer volume of demos at the October 2026 festival is making it harder for individual games to be discovered.
- One developer pulled a planned festival demo over concern that rivals might copy its game prior to launch.
- Naavik reports that of the 4,382 demos featured at the June 2026 Steam Next Fest, 550, or 12.5 percent, disclosed some form of AI use during production.
Valve’s Steam Next Fest opened Oct. 19, 2026, with 8,202 playable demos for upcoming PC games, more than double last year’s event, as players asked Valve to add a filter that hides games containing AI-generated content.
Valve already requires developers to disclose AI use, but Steam offers no filter to hide AI-generated games, and Valve has not said whether it will create one. PC players use Steam Next Fest to sample demos of upcoming games, many of them from indie developers, but the October 2026 event’s size means individual titles are harder to discover. One developer pulled a planned festival demo over concern that rivals might copy its game before launch.
Estimates of AI disclosure among demos vary across sources. Naavik reports that 550 of the 4,382 featured demos at the June 15 to June 22, 2026, festival disclosed some form of AI use, or 12.5 percent. Notebookcheck counted more than 17 percent of demos with Steam’s generative AI disclosure in recent festival events. Kotaku writer Zack Zwiezen found AI disclaimers on 10 of the 16 games he sampled on the main hub page during a June 2026 festival.
Naavik says the widely reported 20 percent AI figure referred to submissions rather than featured demos. A sixth of the leading 25 titles by wishlist expansion at the June festival included an AI disclosure, but none of the top 50 games by wishlist increase included an AI-enabled gameplay component. AI Pixel Battle was one of the June 2026 demos experimenting with AI-native mechanics, letting players draw a monster while an AI narrates the battle in real time.
Naavik, citing Gamediscover.co, reports that top 10 percent performers at the June festival added roughly 121 followers, down about 25 percent from 163 in June 2025. Backlash at the June event centered on developers who concealed AI use, including the demo 1666: Amsterdam.
Players on Steam forums labeled some Next Fest demos AI slop as the February 24, 2026, festival began, criticizing what they see as a high volume of low-quality demos reliant on generative AI or repackaged assets. Epic’s Sweeney said, “I think it’s really irresponsible of Valve,” and questioned whether AI-use tags will remain meaningful once AI tools are everywhere.
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