Right after Summer Game Fest, Steam Next Fest 2025 kicked off with a large selection of demos. Germany's frontrunners include Deadly Days: Roadtrip (Pixelsplit, Instinct3), Star Birds (Toukana Interactive, kurzgesagt), and Ferocious (Omyog, tinyBuild).

Today marks the end of Steam Next Fest 2025, which took place immediately after Summer Game Fest 2025. Wildgate (Moonshot Games, Dreamhaven), Jump Ship (Keepsake Games) and Vindictus: Defying Fate (Nexon) led the top demos on Steam, several demos from German developers and publishers also made it into the top 100. Steam sorts the demos by daily user count, using recent daily active data (as of Monday, 16 June 2025, 13:00).

Deadly Days: Roadtrip, developed by Pixelsplit (Eschborn) and published by Instinct3 (Berlin), is ranked 16th. Combining roguelike bullet hell gameplay with backpack inventory management, the game fuses zombie action with tactical resource management. At its peak, 3,038 players were active in the Steam demo.

"At first, combining tricky inventory management with the exhilaration of mowing down endless hordes of zombies seemed quite risky," says Bennet Jeutter, Managing Partner at Pixelsplit. "But after a few prototypes, we were able to establish a captivating gameplay loop that combines both elements harmoniously. Through intensive playtesting and invaluable feedback from our community, the concept became increasingly precise and convincing. The fact that the demo is being so well received now is the best confirmation of our vision."

"The concept and the studio were a perfect fit for us right away. We're always looking for games that we enjoy playing ourselves, as well as ones that suit the creators we work closely with," says Melvin Frank, Product Lead Publishing at Instinct3. "For us, it's crucial to combine fun gameplay with strong streamability. Together with the studio and our partners at LayerApps, we are therefore developing a customised Twitch extension tailored to the game mechanics. We have used similar features in previous releases, and both streamers and their communities have responded extremely positively."

In 20th place on this list is Star Birds by Toukana Interactive (Berlin) and kurzgesagt - in a nutshell (Munich). The factory builder demo had a peak of 3,038 concurrent active players. Star Birds is a strategy game in which players discover asteroids, mine their resources, and build production chains. It is the second game from Dorfromantik studio Toukana Interactive, published in collaboration with kurzgesagt.

The Ferocious demo by Omyog from Cologne and tinyBuild is in 25th place. In this survival, first-person shooter adventure, players find themselves stranded on a dangerous island, where they must face mercenaries, dinosaurs, and a vibrant yet hostile ecosystem (CCU peak: 816). Morbid Metal by Screen Juice and Ubisoft is in 36th place (CCU peak: 834). This hack-and-slash action roguelite game, developed in Cologne, will be released on Steam in Early Access in summer 2025.

In 52nd place is CoopRooms, a cooperative survival horror game for up to five players set in endless backrooms, from ZTEK Studio in Hockenheim (CCU peak: 1,220). "The monsters don't just hunt you - they hear you. Unlike most other Backrooms games, the enemies react to your real voice. Your microphone becomes a tool for survival, don't scream too loud!," the developers said.

In 63rd place is Tiny Bookshop by Neoludic Games from Cologne, in collaboration with publishers Skystone Games and 2P Games (CCU peak: 289). Metal Eden, developed by Reikon Games and published by Deep Silver (Plaion), also appealed to numerous players (CCU peak: 573).

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Written by

Marcel Kleffmann
Marcel Kleffmann