10 Games From The 2025 Steam Next Fest You Should Check Out – Part 2
Hello again, dear reader. Welcome to part 2 of our coverage for the 2025 Steam Next Fest. The people asked, and I have delivered yet another 10 indie games from Valve’s showcase event to bestow onto you. There’s definitely more of a horror-type theme to a few of these titles, but where’s the joy in a demo if you’re not uncomfortably shifting in your chair? Without any further ado, here are 10 more games to feast your eyeballs upon and potentially try out for yourself.
The Empty Desk
Ready for some psychological thriller vibes in a technological dystopia? The Empty Desk plays very akin to a traditional horror walking simulator, only you’re a detective too. Stuck in an endless office loop (insert joke about corporate drone-ism here), you must uncover evidence, snap pictures and fend off the odd jump scare or two. While the production value isn’t of the highest quality, the game is a solo dev effort, and that’s commendable.
There’s even an option to turn off the jump scares (though whisper it… they’re not too bad… so far), and the credits from the demo list out 50 reasons why you should play the game. No need for me to sell you on it when the developer has already given you a whole 50! Kidding aside, it’s a fun detective-horror combo and though the developer is named CheesecakeGames, the themes of this one are anything but light and fluffy.
The Empty Desk will be starting its investigation on Steam, but the detective is yet to arrive, they’ll be coming soon though. It’s being developed and published by CheesecakeGames.
Fretless – The Wrath of Riffson
Enjoy your old-school Final Fantasy-type JRPGs but wish they had more shredding of sick beats in them? No? Well, you should. Fretless – The Wrath of Riffson is what you get when you take OG Cloud and company, but swap out the Buster Sword for acoustic guitars and spikey hair-dos for folky flat-caps. One of my favourites of the Next Fest so far, indie gems like these put the creativity of the AAA space to shame.
Travel a fantastical land, slay some creatures with your far-out riffs, swap between acoustic and bass guitars, upgrade with new strings or unleash your ultimate shred abilities with well-timed QTEs, Fretless – The Wrath of Riffson has all the JRPG tropes but with a superb musical theme layered on top. The soundtrack is stellar, the turn-based combat slaps and I could listen to this band play well into the early hours of the morning. Too excited to see the end result of this one.
Fretless – The Wrath of Riffson will be tuning a beat onto Steam sometime in 2025. It’s being developed by Ritual Studios and published by Playdigious Originals.
Haneda Girl
Anime women and mechs go together like peanut butter and jelly, as the Americans would probably say. I’m happy to admit that I absolutely suck at Haneda Girl, owing to my lack of experience with mouse and keyboard, but also because it requires lightning reflexes and twitchy reactions. A 2D side-scrolling version of Miami Hotline, even a single hit from an enemy will fell you.
Each level, therefore, becomes a gauntlet of how to most efficiently, and stylishly, eradicate your foes using Haneda’s dash, super-dash, from behind strike and her mech’s firepower. It’s an incredibly fun and frenetic time, but you’ll struggle to catch your breath as you blaze through enemies, dying repeatedly in the process. Intensely quick yet extremely satisfying, my only regret is that I’m just not better at Haneda Girl… but I did acquire one silver medal, I’ll take that.
Haneda Girl will be suiting up her mech on Steam in Q2 of 2025. It’s being developed and published by Studio Koba.
Inhuman Resources: A Literary Machination
Choice-based interactive fiction is pretty tough to come across in the gaming sphere nowadays. Inhuman Resources: A Literary Machination is effectively a text adventure where something rather sinister is lurking right behind the curtain. You take on the role of a down-on-their-luck unemployed loser who needs rent money and a stable job pronto. A sketchy and peculiar HR management company offers you such a job – should be great times, right?
Well, play Inhuman Resources: A Literary Machination’s demo and find out for yourself. With a wealth of choices to consider, stats that increase your speech options and a host of morally scrupulous situations to navigate, this is a surprisingly enticing little indie title. Corporate machinations, personality manipulation, dubious ethical practices, this game is hitting some hard notes with the current societal state of the world.
Inhuman Resources: A Literary Machination will be smooth talking it’s way onto Steam at some point, though it’s release date remains secretive. It’s being developed by Finnegan Motors and published by Indie Asylum.
Katanaut
Man, this one humbled me. If you’re one for the “git gud” crowd when it comes to action games or roguelikes, you’re gonna have a terrible (read: great) time with Katanaut. Set aboard a space station that’s gone to cosmic Hell and back, you’ll slice and shoot your way through a multitude of horrifying creatures in side-scrolling action. The combination of Samurai with Cyberpunk and Lovecraftian aesthetics is the highlight, though the action is no slouch either.
I was killed within the first group of about five enemies, owing to the brutal persistence of the face-hugger-like smaller foes. Then again a half dozen more times in rather short succession. However, Katanaut’s difficulty is very much in line with its visual style and atmosphere. It lends itself well to the action roguelike genre, and I can foresee this one having a bright, if terrifying future amidst the body horror and blood strewn walls. Violent and satisfying, just how we like them.
Katanaut will be slashing its way onto Steam in 2025. It’s being developed and published by Voidmaw.
Muffles’ Life Sentence
Undertale really did a number on the gaming industry. The inspiration from the unbelievably good indie gem is oozing out of every pore of Muffles’ Life Sentence. From the lashings of red upon black and white colour palette, to the disturbing faces and imagery, this one is disconcerting, to say the least. Hell if it isn’t damn interesting and engrossing, though.
You are Muffles – a criminal thrown into a rather unorthodox prison where the inmates are remade in order to match the crimes they’ve committed… ouch. You’ll venture through the incarceration complex, indulge quirky personalities and do a built of deckbuilding card battling. You also talk to Nightmare in a pot. So yeah, plenty of psychological theory to unpack in this title.
Muffles’ Life Sentence will be murmuring through its sentence on Steam, coming March 8th. It’s being developed and published by BossyPino.
Mystical Tactics
It wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t some sort of turn-based strategy game and Mystical Tactics provided just the right fix I needed. Don’t let the cutesy pixel-art visuals fool you otherwise, this is a tough but fair tactics game where plotting your movement and actions is paramount. Overstep or get too greedy with your blood lust and you’ll quickly find your heroes plastered into the floor like a depressed puddle.
Mixing tactical turn-based strategy with roguelike mechanics, whereby you select what “rooms” to engage with after each encounter, works well for the spritely little title. It’s both rewarding and tough. I regularly lost a character or two in fights, but more due to my own incompetence rather than overzealous difficulty. We’ll ignore the fact I was playing on the easiest difficulty and definitely would have been slaughtered on the tougher ones…
Mystical Tactics will be facing the dark lord on Steam in Q2 of 2025. It’s being developed by Pierre “Morm” Champon and published by MormWare.
NEDRA
Another solo dev project, and well, it shows with some of its clunkiness. But hey, survival horror is meant to have a dash of jank, you know. Even so, there’s something about this atmospheric first-person survival horror that’s actually quite intriguing. Set during the Soviet era on an Antarctic station, you’ll face the ire of the frozen tundra, managing hypothermia as well as your health. Not only that, but there are some real nasty creatures roaming amongst the frost and the snow.
NEDRA blends a handful of different game mechanics into a single demo. One minute you’re driving across the icy wastes, the next you’re procuring items before running or battling with frostwalkers. There are certainly some… quirks… that need to be ironed out, but for a solo effort, there’s a lot of spooky aura and good ideas crammed into this to make it worth keeping your eye on.
NEDRA will be stalking out of the shadows onto Steam at some point in an unconfirmed future. It’s being developed by Davit Andreasyan and published by indie.io.
The Other Side
You know, it’s not games like FIFA or Call of Duty that make me rage, it’s titles like The Other Side. Mistime a jump by 0.1 seconds, fail to spot those spikes that definitely weren’t just there or just get too impatient and off you pop to the beginning of the level. Much like a slowed down Super Meat Boy, The Other Side is a (comparatively speaking) quick-paced platformer, where precision and timing are key.
Get through the small yet incredibly hazardous levels without going splat as quickly as you can. Sometimes you need a key, sometimes you can’t see, sometimes I can rhyme. Don’t forget the cake too! If there’s cake on offer, you gotta be grabbing it. If only they weren’t kept right next to those goddamn spikes. With a cute art style and increasing difficulty curve, The Other Side is shaping up pretty nicely.
The Other Side will be dashing onto Steam, though the release date is as physical as the ghostly apparition you play as, for now. It’s being developed and published by Awkward Humans.
Spray Paint Simulator
Power Wash Simulator was pretty popular, wasn’t it? Course it was. We all enjoy doing the mundane tasks in a video game that we despise in real life, and what better way to procrastinate from your real home improvement than by doing the virtual equivalent? Spray Paint Simulator is exactly what you would expect – grab a paint gun, start firing away. It’s like Pimp My Ride, complete with obnoxiously loud colour schemes.
I spent 30 minutes with the demo hosing down a Charger car in bright orange, before hitting up Tony’s kitchen in luminescent blue. Make sure to remove any valuables and mask up any windows, lest you face the ire of a disgruntled customer. It’s another Simulator title, but it’s just so damn satisfying seeing the boring old browns become awash with a palette of a veritable rainbow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more life admin to ignore in favour of glamming up a virtual car in a colourful paint job.
Spray Paint Simulator will be blasting onto Steam in Q2 of 2025. It’s being developed by North Star Video Games and published by Whitethorn Games.
Phew. So many games. Seen any that have piqued your interest? Give them a wishlist, leave a nice comment for them or spread the love. I hope you’ve been having a blast finding your own gems and trucking through the 1000s of available games offering a sneak peek at what’s to come. Personally, I’ve never felt more content that the video game industry is actually doing rather well – the glutton of incredible solo and small teamwork being done is clearly thriving, and it’s been wonderful to get lost in the indie ecosystem.
With that, I will bequeath you to go and continue your gaming odysseys. I’ll likely be back with a Part 3, if the mountain of shoutouts on our X thread is anything to go by, so keep a keen ear pricked up ready. If there’s any I’ve missed or that you feel deserve a shoutout, feel free to drop us a comment or leave us a message on X or Bluesky. Alright, enough jibber jabber, BACK TO THE GAMES!
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