As Steam Next Fest gets bigger and more crowded with free demos, these developers are still finding wins: "It's kind of early access for Early Access"

Key art for Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, showing a large battle with a castle and dragon in the background, cropped to focus on the fairy army.

"It's the first time we've ever launched something on Steam first, so that, in itself, was quite a… feeling," says Reanimal producer and Tarsier Studios co-founder Andreas Johnsson, pausing slightly as he recalls Reanimal's Steam Next Fest demo in October of last year. "I was going to say positive feeling!"

"Fans weren't super happy at times, were they?" chuckles Dave Mervik. Historically a PlayStation-first studio, a Reanimal demo for PS5 launched weeks after my chat – but for Steam Next Fest, the team threw themselves into the PC experience, inviting fans to check out their first horror adventure since leaving behind Little Nightmares. In our Reanimal review, we called it "a feast of twisted weirdness".