Stormgate, Pacific Drive, Homeworld 3 and Backpack Battles round out the top five
February’sSteam Next Festdemo bonanza officially concluded on Monday, and Valve have now revealed the 50 most played games you all tucked into across the week-long event. Ordered by the number of unique players that spent time with them during Next Fest proper (meaning all those early demo plays from earlier in the month haven’t been counted), the most popular game of the lot was one that was only formally announced right at the end of January. So congratulationsDungeonborne- your blend of PvPvE dungeon crawling and fantasy skelly monsters clearly struck a chord with this year’s Next Festers.
Valve don’t provide any extra context or numbers to show exactly what it takes to rise to the top of the Next Fest charts, but according to developers Mithril Interactive, they had over 19K concurrent players during their Next Fest playtest - a feat that’s helped catapult them from the top 500 of Steam’s most wishlisted games right into the top 50, all in the space of two weeks since it was first announced.
“This playtest has affirmed that our vision forDungeonborneis on the right track,” the devs wrote in aSteam blogpost on Monday. “Armed with your insights, we’re prepared to address the challenges identified during this test, such as balancing classes and gear disparity, enhancing anti-cheat measures, and polishing other gameplay details. Rest assured, every piece of feedback will be thoroughly reviewed and combined with our data analysis to guide our future development plans and release strategy.”
As for the rest of the top 50, which you can seein full here, you’ll find several familiar names in the list - many of which we clocked early in ourteam recommendation list, as well as many of our otherdemo postswe’ve written over the last few weeks.
Starcraft spiritual successorStormgatecame in at number two, followed by first-person car roguelikePacific Drive, therecently delayedspace epicHomeworld 3and the indie autobattlerBackpack Battles. Elsewhere in the top ten, I’m also pleased to see that poker roguelikeBalatroand Paradox’s Civ-rivalMilleniamade the cut, as well as theHollow Knight-esqueDeviator.
It’s a pretty stacked list all told - clearly a sign that Next Festers have pretty good taste at the end of the day, though the fact that everyone ignored thebeautiful Until Thenis a crime I will never forgive (I’m sure it’s no.51). The demo’s still live, too, so you simply have no excuse. Go get it played.
In fact, most Next Fest demos still seem to be going strong at the moment, so if you’re wondering what all the fuss is about with some of these chart toppers, then there’s a good chance you still have time to find out.
