Steam Next Fest’s October 2026 edition ends on Monday, October 26, at 10 a.m. PT, closing out a week of free demos that peaked at more than 158,000 simultaneous players. This weekend is the last chance to browse the whole event — after Monday, each demo stays up only if its developer keeps it. Short on time? Follow the crowd: the cyberpunk shop sim Probably Stolen, the social-deduction game Worst Class Ever and the gothic workshop sim Abyssal Lapidary are the demos people are actually playing right now.
At a glance
Ends: Monday, October 26, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. PT (1:00 p.m. ET) — 1:00 a.m. on October 27 in Beijing
After the fest: each demo stays up only if its developer keeps it — some already have their own end dates
Most-played demos right now (Output Lag’s day-4 hourly tracking of Steam’s public player counts: Probably Stolen (36,386), Worst Class Ever (16,960), Abyssal Lapidary (3,791), Frostrail (3,645), Loftia (3,159)
Full games landing within days of the fest: Emberville (Early Access, Oct 27), Probably Stolen (Oct 28), The Wolf Among Us Remastered (Oct 29)
Steam’s Halloween sale starts the same day the fest ends — October 26
What ends Monday, and what sticks around
The festival itself ends Monday morning at 10 a.m. PT, per Valve’s Steamworks schedule. The demos are a different story. As the roundup at How to Video Game notes, every demo is free on Steam until the fest ends, and after that each one stays up only if its developer chooses to keep it. So Monday is a deadline for discovery, not necessarily for playing.
Some developers have already named their own dates. Atari says the Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered demo stays up until October 27, a day after the fest ends. Telltale’s demo for The Wolf Among Us Remastered — the whole of Episode 1 — is free through October 26, three days before the October 29 launch. The practical move: check the store page of any demo you care about instead of assuming it vanishes Monday.
The demos people are actually playing
Output Lag has been counting every Next Fest demo hourly from Steam’s public player-count API, and its day-4 snapshot is striking: 158,318 people were in demos at the same moment. The cyberpunk shop sim Probably Stolen — developed by Questing Goose Studio and published by tinyBuild — leads with 36,386 players. One demo is lapping the field: second place, Funcore Games’ team-based social deduction game Worst Class Ever, sits at 16,960.
Worst Class Ever is the fastest climber, up 12,608 players in 24 hours. Behind the top two the field tightens: Light Worm’s gothic workshop sim Abyssal Lapidary (3,791), FakeFish’s open-world survival crafter Frostrail (3,645) and Qloud Games’ cozy online life sim Loftia (3,159). Output Lag is open about its method — these are live player counts, not wishlists, and idle companion games are excluded.
Demos whose full games land within days
The highest-value demos this weekend are the ones you can compare against the real thing almost immediately. Probably Stolen launches October 28 — its Steam page confirms the date — so a weekend demo session doubles as a purchase decision. The Wolf Among Us Remastered arrives October 29, and its demo is the complete first episode, generous for a narrative game. Emberville, the pixel-art action RPG, enters Early Access on October 27, the day after the fest ends.
A few more worth flagging from the charts. Abyssal Lapidary is the No. 1 game on Steam’s trending Next Fest list, and developer Light Worm says its demo covers roughly a quarter of the full game. Loftia, the cozy life sim at No. 5 among the most-played, enters Early Access on November 3.
How to spend the last weekend
Start with Steam’s own Charts tab for the fest — most-played by daily active players, most-wishlisted and trending — minus anything you have already finished. Then check each remaining demo’s store page for its own availability date, because Monday’s deadline is not universal. Wishlist the ones you like; the fest’s charts feed directly off that signal, and it is the cheapest way to make sure a small studio’s demo gets a second look.
And keep one eye on Monday morning. When Next Fest ends at 10 a.m. PT, Valve’s Halloween sale starts at the same hour. Anyone who tried horror demos during the fest goes into Monday with a head start on what to watch. Play now, decide later, buy on sale: that is the whole point of the calendar Valve built.