Steam gamers warned they've 48 hours left to claim hundreds of free downloads

You know I hate to pull you away from your groaning backlog of games, but there's currently something wonderful going on that you don't have long left to get involved with.

Over on Steam you can currently download and play hundreds (and I really do mean hundreds) of unreleased games, all for free.

What manner of sorcery is this? How do you pull yourself away from some of the absolute bangers you're currently playing so you can even begin to make a dent on some of these games?

I can't answer either question. I can only tell you that you have until 21 October to get your hands on this vast bounty of downloads, which are all available as part of Steam Next Fest 2024.

Steam Next Fest is, if you're new to the whole deal, a wonderful week in gaming in which various developers and publishers release free demos for their upcoming games, giving you a good chance to get properly stuck in and see what'll be your big 2025 gaming obsession.

Demos include The Axis Unseen, a huge Elder Scrolls-style monster hunting game, and Permafrost, which is somewhere between The Last Of Us and Fallout with a survival twist.

Truly, that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are open-world games, indies, adventure games, RPGs, horrors, racing sims, and so much more. My advice would be to download everything you can and work out a plan to make your way through it all as and when you can.

There are so many games you're unlikely to realistically see them all, so just let your Steam algorithm do most of the work and check out the things you like the look of. And just remember: it ends 21 October, at which point the ability to download most, if not all, of the demos will be gone.