On Twitter, Game Awards founder Geoff Keighley unveiled a new aspect to the event, The Game Festival. Unlike The Game Awards which celebrates the best games of the year, and includes reveal trailers for new games, The Game Festival serves as a way to sample new titles for free.
Geoff Keighley reveals The Game Festival
© Glass Bottom Games
The Game Festival is directly tied to The Game Awards, but works differently in that The Game Festival will give gamers access to free demos over a 48-hour period. The first installment of The Game Festival will host these demos to all users on Steam around the time of the Game Awards.
Speaking on the decision to expand The Game Awards festivities to game demos, Geoff Keighly noted:
“As our show continues to grow, I want to move beyond just showing trailers and give you access to gameplay through a digital consumer event. This is a pilot program for 2019. We’ll take your feedback and expand in a big way in 2020 across all platforms and regions.”
With this statement, it’s safe to say that next year’s Game Festival will be accessible on platforms outside of Steam, though it’s still exciting to be able to try out over a dozen different titles for free on PC. Keighley went on to share what games will be available to demo for free on Steam as part of this year’s Game Festival, which we’ve listed below.
- System Shock
- Eastward
- Spiritfarer
- Moving Out
- Röki
- Chicory
- Wooden Nickel
- Haven
- Heavenly Bodies
- Acid Knife
- The Drifter
- Carrion
- SkateBIRD
Gamers will have access to these free demos starting this Thursday at 1 p.m. (EST), and will be available through the week until Saturday at 1 p.m. (EST). Meanwhile, The Game Awards will be streamed live on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. (EST). After hearing about The Game Festival, what are your thoughts? Are you planning to try out any of the demos listed above? If so, which ones? Comment below!