Steam Next Fest opens Oct. 19 at 10 a.m. Pacific
The October edition lasts one week and closes Oct. 26 at the same hour. Only games that launch after that date and have a public demo can take part.
Steam Next Fest, Valve's demo festival, returns in October 2026 and runs from Monday, Oct. 19, to Monday, Oct. 26. According to the Steamworks documentation, it opens at 10 a.m. Pacific (UTC-7) and closes at the same hour seven days later. In Mexico City, which is on UTC-6, that is 11 a.m. on both days.
The festival gathers playable demos of games that have not launched yet. To take part, a game has to launch after the event closes, have a public store page and offer a demo that anyone can play when it starts. Each title can join only one Next Fest. The press preview began on Oct. 8.
Trying a demo does not cost anything. Players download it from each game's page and open it with their Steam account. The event page still says "Coming Soon", so the list of demos should appear from Oct. 19.
Valve has not published the schedule of streams or an official count of demos. Secondary pages speak of "hundreds" and of "thousands" without giving a number.
Next Fest takes place three times a year, in February, June and October. After this edition, the Steam festival calendar continues with Steam Scream on Oct. 26. What remains to be seen is which studios and demos draw the attention once the page opens.
