Steam Next Fest checklist: eight weeks out to the last day

Next Fest punishes late work in a way a launch does not: a game can enter only one edition, ever, so a demo that misses a deadline or arrives broken spends the entry for nothing. The dates below are from Valve's page for the February 2027 edition. For any other edition, count back the same distances from its start.

Everything a player decides before downloading your demo, they decide on the store page, and the store page is also what lets you register. Start here.

• Store page published and public (Valve's rule). It can be Coming Soon; it cannot be hidden. Valve's store page review usually takes 3 to 5 business days and it asks for seven, so submit with time to fix a rejection.
• No release date before the fest ends (Valve's rule). Use Coming Soon or a quarter. A release date before the start blocks registration.
• First Next Fest for this game (Valve's rule). There is no second entry, and a new edition of the same game does not count as a new game.
• Registered from the base game, with one or two primary categories chosen, and the green tick showing on the App Landing Page (Valve's rule). Without categories the game cannot appear in the fest's By Genre or By Feature sections. Our sign-up guide walks through it.
• Tags accurate (Valve's advice). Valve sorts the fest by categories and tags; an aspirational tag puts you in front of players who will bounce.
• Capsule readable at small sizes (practice). The header capsule is 920 x 430 and the small capsule 462 x 174; at the small size, the title and one image have to read. The Steam image sizes guide lists every asset.

Valve builds its official Next Fest trailer from games' own store-page trailers, pulled on one day (18 January for February 2027). Steam also generates the microtrailers shown on hover from your first store-page video, and they cannot be customised.

• The best trailer you have is first on the store page by the pull date (Valve's process). The first video is the one Steam cuts its microtrailer from.
• The trailer shows play in its first seconds (practice). In a carousel of hundreds, a logo sting is a skip.
• Watch your inbox after registration closes (Valve's process). Valve tells the developers it is considering within about a week and gives them about two weeks to grant permission.

• Demo app created, of the Demo type, attached to the base game, with its own depots and builds (Valve's rule).
• Store presence chosen: a Download Demo button on the game's page, or a separate demo page with its own description, at least five demo screenshots, demo-labelled capsules and a content survey that matches the demo (Valve's rules for a separate page).
• Demo build and store presence submitted for review by 25 January if you want it live for the Press Preview (Valve's timeline).
• Played by someone who is not you, on a machine that is not yours (practice). Valve's build review checks the demo runs and matches its page; in its own words it is not a full QA process.
• The best fifteen to thirty minutes, not the first (practice). Cut the tutorial to what the demo needs and put your hook early.
• A wishlist prompt on the last screen (practice). The demo's job is the wishlist; end it on what the full game adds and a button that opens the store page.
• A feedback button in the demo's main or pause menu, linking to a Steam discussions sub-forum for the demo, your Discord or a bug form (Valve's tip).
• The demo's home screen says whether and when it will be taken down after the fest (Valve's tip).
• Achievements off in the demo (Valve's recommendation); grant them in the full game.

• Every required item submitted for review by 8 February (Valve's rule: later puts your place in the edition at risk).
• Crash reporting on in the demo build, so the week's crashes reach you with a stack trace (practice).
• Stream plan written and a test stream run if you will stream (Valve recommends the test). The Next Fest livestream guide has the setup.
• Press and creator emails drafted, each with a demo key or link, one short clip of the best moment, and the fest dates (practice).
• Store-page event drafted for launch day: what the demo contains and how long it takes (practice).

• Decide whether the demo goes public now. A demo released before the fest is playable by everyone on Steam, not only press (Valve's note). Early release buys reviews and fixes; release on the day keeps the demo new during the week.
• Know your one wishlist email. Releasing a demo unlocks one email to your wishlisters, usable only within two weeks of the demo's first release, and wishlist notifications have a two-week cooldown per app (Valve's rules). Send it when it will land best.
• Send the creator emails with the demo or a key, so videos can be ready for the week (practice).
• Opt the trailer out by 11 February only if you do not want it in Valve's marketing.

• Demo released at least 30 minutes before 10 a.m. Pacific (Valve's recommendation). A demo that is not released before the start does not appear in the fest.
• Base game republished if the demo has its own page, so the two are linked and the Download Demo button shows (Valve's rule).
• Demo button above the purchase options: Edit Store Page, Special Settings, display above purchase options (Valve's tip).
• Announcement event posted on the store page, and the same news on your own channels (practice).
• Stream live, if you planned to, for the first hours (optional).

For the first few days Steam shuffles the fest's lists for everyone; after that, a signed-in player sees carousels built from what they played. The demo that gets played early gets shown more.

• Watch the numbers every day: demo players, median play time, wishlists, followers (practice).
• Patch fast. Updates to an approved demo are not reviewed again (Valve's note), so a crash fix can ship within the hour.
• Answer every review and forum thread (practice). By the end of the October 2025 fest only 21.5% of demos had ten or more reviews, by GameDiscoverCo's count, so each one is read.
• No Steam Playtest running during the fest (Valve's recommendation).

• Check the wrap-up page. Valve features the most-played demos when the fest closes and emails the developers who made it.
• Keep the demo up, unless it gives away most of a short game (Valve recommends considering it; players are disappointed when demos vanish).
• Write down what moved wishlists, day by day, before you forget. Our after Next Fest guide goes through the reading and the launch decision.

Flockbay is a free AI game builder on the official Godot engine, and it prepares the publishing side too. Its Steam page drafts the store copy, tags and content survey and cuts capsule and library art from a real frame of your game, packed as a .zip you upload in Steamworks yourself. Video studio cuts the trailer and the creator clips from your real gameplay, and playtest links put the demo in front of testers before Valve's reviewers, with crashes reported back to your AI. Preparing the page by hand and its .zip are free; the drafting, Video studio and hosted playtests are free in beta until 1 December 2026. Flockbay never uploads anything to Steam.