Steam Next Fest is back, with demos, livestreams, and a special badge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The June 2022 edition of Valve’s Steam Next Fest kicked off Monday, and during the weeklong event, you’ll be able to check out hundreds of free demos, according to the company.

There are seriously a lot of demos — as if there weren’t already a ton of games to play right now — but fortunately, Valve has a few tools to help you sort through what’s available. On the Next Fest page, you can look at different genre pages, and the company also highlights popular upcoming games, most wishlisted upcoming games, and games ranked by daily active demo players. One topping the charts that I have my eye on is Metal: Hellsinger, which is apparently a “rhythm FPS” that’s “brimming with diabolical enemies, powerful weapons, and metal music.” That sounds awesome??

In addition, Valve will feature livestreams from developers — you can see the full schedule here — and offer a special profile badge during the event, which runs until June 20th.

The Steam Next Fest is just one of many big gaming events taking place this month. On Sunday, Microsoft put on its big Xbox showcase, and on June 9th, Geoff Keighley hosted Summer Game Fest. There’s no E3 this year, but it’s set to return in 2023.