Steam Next Fest returns on October 1 with developers able to submit now

Another big Steam event is coming up with the Steam Next Fest due to be live once again on October 1.

This is the event where for a limited time, developers put up fresh demos of their upcoming games. Not only that, you're able to watch various livestreams of talks directly from developers and watch them play their games directly on Steam pages.

For developers, they have until August 15 to submit their game for review, along with a demo. However, as before, there's a few points that Valve have made clear for any interested developers to follow:

• Associated with a Steamworks developer account in good standing
• Visible on Steam as Coming Soon at the time of registration 
• To include a publicly playable demo by the time the festival begins 
• To be released between October 7, 2021 and May 1, 2022 (as indicated by the Release Date set on your app landing page in Steamworks)
• Each game can participate in one Steam Game Festival or Steam Next Fest.

The last point is a newer rule that came with a previous festival, but wasn't in the first. The idea, we believe, is to ensure that different developers are able to get the spotlight each time, instead of developers fudging their release dates to get more exposure which has happened in the past with some changing their dates to stay at the top of certain lists on Steam.

Valve are being understanding for developers though, if they haven't shipped their game at least one year after a festival they can apply for another.

Steam Next Fest will be live between October 1 to October 7, 2021. You can view the preview page to sign up for a reminder.

Valve has also confirmed another Steam Next Fest will go live in February 2022.