Steam Next Fest is a goldmine of indie treasure... usually. In the past, it's been my go-to for finding new boomer shooter and horror gems to obsess over, like the spaghetti western Golden Chambers and the ASCII-inspired Repose, but lately, it's a minefield of AI slop.
GamesRadar+ reported that, out of the 8,600 demos available during this week's Next Fest, almost 1,700 of them use AI — one in five. What used to be an exciting few days of diving into all manner of indie games and stocking your wishlist full of upcoming gems has become an exhausting gauntlet of 'That looks really cool! Oh, it used AI.'
Developers now have to disclose the use of AI, but that disclosure is a tiny little footnote at the bottom of the store page. So, if you want to avoid the 1,700 demos using the technology during Next Fest, you need to meticulously vet every single game that piques your interest. It's tedious, and has weighed down an otherwise exciting celebration of the industry's thriving indie scene.
I'm not the only one feeling this frustration, either. Twitch streamer Jeff Fabre is one of many who posted to X that "the amount...
