4 nice video games from Steam’s June Subsequent Fest

Steam’s June 2025 version of its Subsequent Fest is happening now by June sixteenth, and the occasion is filled with great-looking demos for video games coming to PC. Severely, it looks as if there are a lot of demos; a search filter on my Subsequent Fest homepage exhibits greater than 2,500 English demos to choose from.

When you open up the Next Fest page and are overwhelmed, I get it – admittedly, I’m, too. However I’ve performed a couple of and have 4 to advocate.

Mina the Hollower, the following recreation from Shovel Knight creators Yacht Membership Video games, seems like a Sport Boy Colour title made within the fashionable period. You play as Mina the mouse in a top-down action-adventure recreation that jogs my memory lots of Hyperlink’s Awakening. Mina’s signature transfer is a slick burrowing means that permits you to zip round underground for a couple of seconds, and even within the quick demo, I discovered it immensely helpful to get underneath obstacles or create house throughout furry fights.

The demo ends with an thrilling boss battle, and I used to be unhappy when it was over after about half-hour. I’m actually wanting ahead to the sport’s full launch on October thirty first.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a retro-style side-scrolling action-platformer with beautiful pixel artwork and an electrical guitar-filled soundtrack. Like different Ninja Gaiden video games, it’s crammed with flashy fight and lots of blood, however I additionally fairly preferred the old-school platforming – there’s lots of double-jumping off enemies, which by no means will get outdated. Like different Dotemu video games, Ragebound appears to completely seize an old-school vibe however with a recreation made in 2025. And after ending the three ranges within the demo, I’m wanting to play the remainder of the sport when it’s out on July thirty first.

Inside moments of beginning the Ball X Pit demo, I brazenly stated to myself, “oh no.” Not as a result of it’s dangerous. However as a result of it instantly grabbed me as an engrossing mix of roguelikes, Puzzle Bobble, Breakout, and Vampire Survivors.

As enemies slowly advance towards you, you progress your character round and hearth balls at them, which you’ll bounce off partitions and even between enemies. (Naturally, you’ll should dodge bullets from the dangerous guys, too.) Lifeless enemies drop expertise gems, and if you degree up, you’ll be able to choose from varied upgrades, like balls that shock close by foes. You possibly can even fuse balls collectively, and between runs there’s a land administration recreation. And for the those who it will matter to, your well being meter seems to be prefer it was taken proper from Diablo.

I can see dropping lots of time to Ball X Pit when it’s out later this 12 months.

Word Play, from Mark Brown of Sport Maker’s Toolkit, mixes concepts from Balatro and phrase video games.

Every spherical, you’re tasked with getting a selected rating by spelling phrases that may be as much as ten characters lengthy earlier than you run out of turns. As with video games like Scrabble, totally different letter tiles have totally different level values, and phrases with 5 letters or extra will get added bonus factors that may enable you to attain the purpose rating extra rapidly.

Once you attain the purpose rating, you progress on to the following spherical, which could have the next purpose. However you’ll additionally be capable of choose from an improve of some form, like a modifier that routinely applies a 3x multiplier to the second tile of any phrase you spell.

In contrast to the remainder of the demos I’ve beneficial right here, Phrase Play is a chill puzzle recreation, however like with Balatro, I discovered myself attempting to sneak in another run as an alternative of going to mattress. The sport is about to launch on July 14th.