How to sign up for Steam Next Fest

About 2,900 games put a demo into the October 2025 Next Fest, by GameDiscoverCo's count. Every one of them went through the same form, and the form takes about a minute. What stops a game is not the form but the conditions Valve checks around it: a store page still hidden, a release date that lands before the fest, a game that already used its one Next Fest, or a demo set up as the wrong kind of app.

So this guide is in the order those checks bite: what has to be true before you register, the registration itself, the demo, and the deadlines that follow. Dates are for the February 2027 edition, which runs 22 February to 1 March 2027.

Valve's eligibility list for every edition has six conditions, and a game needs all of them:

• It has never been in a Next Fest. A game may take part once, ever. A new edition or version of a game that already took part does not count as a new game.
• Its Steamworks account is in good standing.
• Its store page is published and public. It can say Coming Soon. It cannot be hidden, and it has to have passed Valve's store page review to get there.
• It will have a public, playable demo by the time the fest begins.
• It will not release before the edition ends. A release date set before the fest starts blocks registration. Coming Soon, or a quarter such as Q2 2027, avoids the problem.
• It is not a prologue, preview or short version of a game already out on Steam. Re-releases of existing Steam games are not eligible either.

Valve sets no rule about how far away your launch is, no exclusivity, and no minimum demo length. Free games and Early Access games can enter as long as they are unreleased. Running a Steam Playtest does not affect eligibility, though Valve recommends against running one during the fest itself.

1. Open the base game in Steamworks. Not the demo app. Valve's registration is attached to the game players will buy.
2. Open the edition's registration. Valve links each edition's registration from its Next Fest page in the Steamworks documentation, and the edition's page lists the dates.
3. Tick the checkbox for your game and choose one or two primary categories. These decide which category pages players browse you on during the fest. Choose what the game is, not what is popular.
4. Check your Steam tags. Valve sorts games by tags as well as categories, so the tags on your store page decide which other lists you appear in. Remove any tag that is aspirational rather than accurate.
5. Look for the green tick on the base game's App Landing Page. That is Valve's confirmation that the game is registered.

Later, when the Developer Preview opens, Valve's preview page shows where your game will sit. Check it then, while there is still time to change categories or tags.

A Next Fest demo is not a branch of your game's build. It is a separate app of the Demo type, attached to the base game, with its own builds, its own checklist and its own review. Valve's steps:

1. On the base game's App Landing Page, open All associated packages, DLC, demos and tools, and press Add Demo.
2. In the demo's General Application Settings, set the type to Demo and enter the base game's App ID.
3. Set up depots and upload builds to the demo's own App ID, the same way you would for the game.
4. Choose its store presence: a Download Demo button on the base game's page, or a separate demo store page that can carry its own description, five or more demo screenshots, its own trailer, and user reviews.
5. Complete the checklist on the demo's landing page, mark the store presence and the build ready for review, and wait for Valve's approval.
6. After approval, press Release Demo, then republish the base game's store page so its Download Demo button appears.

If you use a separate demo page, it has to describe only what is in the demo, its capsules have to say it is a demo, and its content survey has to match the demo's content. Valve's build review checks that the demo runs and matches its page; in Valve's own words it is not a full QA process. Our Steam demo page guide weighs the button against a separate page.

Registration is the first of several dates, and the later ones matter more. From Valve's page for the February 2027 edition:

Valve cuts an official trailer for each Next Fest from games' own store-page trailers. Its curation team starts choosing shortly after registration closes, tells the developers it is considering within about a week, and gives them roughly two weeks to grant permission. For February 2027 the trailers are pulled on 18 January.

So the trailer on your base game's store page on that day is the one Valve can use. If yours is placeholder footage, replace it before registration closes. If you would rather not be in the official trailer, you can opt out until 11 February. Our trailer guides cover what makes a trailer usable as one shot among dozens.

• You registered the demo, not the game. Register from the base game's landing page. The demo is attached later.
• The store page is not public yet. Store page review takes days, not hours. Submit it weeks before the registration deadline, then press Publish once it passes.
• A release date is set before the fest ends. Change it to Coming Soon or a quarter. A date after the edition ends is fine.
• The game was in an earlier Next Fest. There is no appeal and no second entry for a new version. The next big beat is your launch.
• The demo is a prologue sold as its own game. Valve excludes prologues and short versions of released games.
• You need to withdraw. Untick the checkbox at the bottom of the registration page. Do it before the Press Preview starts, because the Press Preview includes every registered game.

Releasing a demo unlocks one email to everyone who has the base game on their wishlist. Valve's rules: you can send it once, only within two weeks of the demo's first public release, and disabling and re-enabling the demo does not bring it back. Wishlist notifications also have a two-week cooldown per app, so a demo email blocks another wishlist notification for two weeks.

That makes the demo's release date a decision. Release it during the fest and the email lands while Steam is promoting you. Release it at the Press Preview, eleven days early, and you get early players and fixes, and the email lands before the crowd. Either way, it is separate from Next Fest: using it before the fest does not earn a second one. The wishlist email guide lists every email Steam sends your wishlisters.

Flockbay is a free AI game builder on the official Godot engine, and it prepares the store page your registration depends on. Its Steam page drafts the copy, tags and content survey and cuts capsules and library art from a real frame of your game, then exports everything as a .zip you upload in Steamworks yourself. Video studio cuts the trailer Valve will pull from your page, and playtest links put the demo in front of testers before Valve's reviewers see it. 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 registers, uploads or submits anything to Steam for you.