The most-played Steam Next Fest demos have been revealed, and Valheim meets Dark Souls in the survival RPG at the top of the list

Enshrouded
(Image credit: Keen Games)

The most-played Steam Next Fest demos have been revealed, and I'm not surprised to see what's topped the list. 

The October 2023 edition of Steam Next Fest is officially over, so Steam has compiled a list of the top 50 games played during the event. The games are "ordered by the number of unique players during the weeklong event" and we've played several of the games in the top 5. You can see the list for yourself over on Steam, but here's what you may have missed out on last week. 

In the top spot, you'll find Enshrouded - a Valheim-style survival game with Dark Souls-style bosses that very quickly became Steam Next Fest's most popular game shortly after the event launched. After this, you'll find Japanese Drift Master, a gorgeous open-world racer inspired by the 'Initial D' manga. To round off the top three, we've got Sky: Children of the Light, a rare chill MMO that's the perfect calm to the busyness of Final Fantasy 14.

There are plenty of other great games that make up the top 50, but to pick out some of the highlights we've also got action-roguelike Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, FPS game Robocop: Rogue City, cyberpunk-style action game GhostRunner 2, and rhythm battle royale Headbangers.

During the event, we also highlighted a number of our favorite demos, including JRPG Astra: Knights of Veda, strategy game Stronghold Definitive Edition, roguelike Cursorblade, survival horror Echoes of the Living, farming sim A New Leaf: Memories, city-builder Pioneers Of Pagonia, Soulslike Another Crab's Treasure, horror RPG Little Goody Two Shoes, and so many more. 

Steam Next Fest may be over but it's not too late to try out a lot of these games' demos. If anything we've mentioned takes your interest, head on over to its Steam page as you may find it still has a demo available to try out.

Want even more suggestions? Here's our best Steam Next Fest demos list.

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at 12DOVE before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.