I love Next Fest, it’s a great time to find out what interesting new games are on the horizon. Next Fest is also an interesting one to cover as it occurs three times a year.
Hordes of Fate: A Hand of Fate Adventure
Developer: Spitfire Interactive
Publisher: Spicy Koala
Release When?: Q2 2026
As soon as I saw that this was related to the Hand of Fate series I knew I was onto a winner. Yes, I’m aware that it’s a bullet heaven and those have become increasingly tiresome. But, that’s where Hand of Fate’s system comes into play, with the tokens that can only be gathered by finding the right items or making specific choices.
Having played this for a while I’m certain that this game will be great. However, I recognise my bias here, I love the Hand of Fate games and even have the physical board game (which is also amazing). That being said, give this game a look.
Map Map: A Game about Maps
Developer: Pipapo Games
Publisher: Pipapo Games
Release When?: Q2 2026
From what I can tell from playing the demo (assuming no twists or subversions) this game is going to be a relaxed affair in which you locate specific landmarks on a map.
It does a really good job of slowly introducing the various tools you’ll end up using, for example I never understood how to use a cartographers divider until I played this demo.
This is definitely a game I’ll be getting when it comes out, I want to see how complicated the challenges it’ll give me will become.
Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors
Developer: Poncle
Publisher: Poncle
Release When?: TBA
Just as the bullet heaven genre starts to reach saturation point what does Poncle (who essentially popularised the genre) do? They make a dungeon crawling roguelite card battler, still using the Vampire Survivors aesthetic and characters, of course.
Having played this demo I’m really looking forward to playing this fully, I’m a sucker for a good dungeon crawler and this one is making use of the weapon evolutions that Vampire Survivors is well known for so it should be very entertaining!
Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War!
Developer: Auroch Digital
Publisher: Dotemu
Release When?: 16th March 2026
Lately I’ve been playing Helldivers 2 with some friends and its been a lot of fun, however, every time we face the Terminids I just wish I was playing an actual Starship Troopers game. Well lo and behold that Auroch Digital (the creators of Boltgun) are coming out with exactly what I wanted!
From what I can tell the game will be entirely single player which is fine with me though it does feel like the devs are missing a trick by not including multiplayer co-op. There also seems to be the implication that you can play as the bugs because the when you select to play the button is called ‘Human missions’. Definitely keeping an eye on this one.
Esoteric Ebb
Developer: Christoffer Bodegard
Publisher: Raw Fury
Release When?: 3rd March 2026
What if Disco Elysium were Dungeons and Dragons themed? Welcome to Esoteric Ebb, a game that understands that Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t always have to be serious. You play as The Cleric, who seems to be a bit confused about what he’s doing.
Other being an isometric point and click adventure, what makes me compare this game to Disco Elysium? That would be your stats conversing among themselves when you perform any action, and they can be quite amusing. This is absolutely a game I won’t be passing up.
