Steam Next Fext 2024's most popular demos include goblin maid sims, horror shooters and a Chinese game about an unmarried no-lifer

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Steam Next Fest 2024 has formally ended, we've spent a couple of weeks gorging upon demos of all stripes, from oil spill clean-up to dancefloor kendo, and now comes the all-important process of deciding which of those demos Won. Valve have helpfully shared a list of the most played Steam demos during this latest, gravest round of next festivity, and it covers a reasonable range. I mean, I wasn't that surprised to see an open world survival shooter with monsters at the top of the ladder - why else would we dedicate a bunch of Best Of features to such things? - but I am surprised that number three is a leering parody of neglect. Also, there's a game about mopping dungeons that appeals strongly to my Dungeon Meshi-watching sensibilities.

The big-bottomed craft-me-bang in question is Once Human, which cuts you loose upon an Earth infested with Stardust. A world's worth of Stardust sounds quite enticing, right? Touch of Disney with your wolf-skinning, guvnor? Wrong, Stardust is some kind of horrible endemic lifeform. Consuming water or food contaminated with it will drive you insane. I assume the Stardust plague is also the reason for those towering tentacle bosses you'll meet when not fishing or building a patio.

Number two on the list is Level Zero: Extraction, which is kind of PvP GTFO for squads of three. You are a dudemerc with a fondness for loot, pitting your murdergadgetry against other dudemercs in maps of the Area 51 or Black Mesa persuasion. You can also play as a perfidious, evolving alien creature equipped (should you choose) with an EMP scream and invisibility. The creature's key weakness is that it can't bear light, which sounds like a fun constraint to strategise around. GTFO aside, this reminds me of the wonderful, ill-fated Evolve. The demo is still live at the time of writing if you're keen.

And then there's number three, which is where we go off-piste somewhat. According to a Google translation of its Steam blurb, Chinese Online Game is "a