Steam Next Fest started today with 7,131 demos, the biggest field the festival has ever had. This edition also lost two of the ways people found their way around it: there is no official livestream, and the genre tabs are gone. That is a lot of doors and not much of a map.
So we drew one. The Output Lag Next Fest live chart ranks every demo in the festival by how many people are playing it right now. It checks every one of them on Steam, every hour, until the fest closes on October 26.
- 7,131demos in the fest, all on the chart
- 106,158people playing them right now
- 14genre charts, so you can browse again
The chart is live
This board is not a screenshot. It refreshes itself every hour, so whenever you read this, it shows the demos people are in at that moment.
What the chart shows you
- What people are actually playing. Every demo gets its live player count, its peak so far, an hourly trend line and how far it has moved in the last 24 hours.
- The climbers. A Climbing fast list picks out the demos gaining the most players in the last day. This is where the surprises of a Next Fest usually show up first.
- Your demo in seconds. Type a game or a developer into the search box and the chart narrows to it.
By the Genre
Valve took the genre tabs away this year, so we put them back. Every genre has its own live chart, with the demo leading it right now:
- HorrorLeading: Frostrail
- RoguelikesLeading: Meltdown Crew
- Co-opLeading: Loftia
- CozyLeading: Loftia
- SurvivalLeading: Frostrail
- StrategyLeading: Meltdown Crew
- City buildersLeading: Probably Stolen – Cyberpunk Shopkeeper Sim
- RPGsLeading: ArcheAge Chronicles
- DeckbuildersLeading: HANDS OVER
- ShootersLeading: Frostrail
- PlatformersLeading: Fart Together
- PuzzleLeading: Meltdown Crew
- SimulatorsLeading: Probably Stolen – Cyberpunk Shopkeeper Sim
- Story-richLeading: Probably Stolen – Cyberpunk Shopkeeper Sim
Horror fans, take note: the fest ends on October 26, the same day Steam Scream starts, and it is still Lagoween here until Halloween. The horror chart is a good place to build your list for the week after.
The chart every morning
Each morning until the fest ends, we post the ten most played demos, the fastest climbers and the top demo in every genre. Follow along here or on Bluesky. When the fest closes we publish the final chart, ranked by peak players across the whole week, and set it next to Valve’s own list of the most played demos.
Made one of these demos?
Every demo on the chart gets a badge that shows its live rank. Put it on your website, press kit or devlog: it updates every hour on its own, for the whole fest.
Clicks from our chart to Steam carry an Output Lag tag, so they show up in your Steamworks traffic reports. And nobody pays to rank. The order is based on the player count and nothing else.
How we count
We read the live player count of every Next Fest demo from Steam’s public player count API. Demos with players are checked every hour, and the whole festival every four hours. It counts people inside a demo at that moment: not wishlists, not sales, not followers. It is our own count, not Valve’s.
Friday’s Lanternwatch log will carry the week’s most played demos too. Join the watch and it lands in your inbox.
