Steam Next Fest's top 10 demos include just one AI disclosure out of 500+ flagged games

Valve has revealed the ten most-played Steam Next Fest demos, and only one of them carries an AI content disclosure. That game is Embers of the Uncrowned, Nexon's upcoming dark fantasy MMO — which, ironically, looks like it has the biggest production budget of the entire top ten.

The full list includes Echoes of Aincrad, a Sword Art Online anime ARPG; Mistfall Hunter, an extraction RPG with Soulslike melee combat; over the hill, an offroad sim from the Art of Rally developers; IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator; EMPULSE, a 6v6 shooter from the Splitgate studio that blends Mirror's Edge aesthetics with Titanfall movement; Dust Front RTS, a vintage-styled strategy game for '90s PC gaming fans; The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, a four-player co-op treasure hunt in a dangerous sci-fi jungle; BOMBANANA!, a whimsical multiplayer game about monkeys defusing bombs; and Casualties: Unknown, a survival platformer set underground. Embers of the Uncrowned's disclosure states that AI tools may be used for in-game visual content, marketing materials, live chat translation, and partial dialogue localization, while noting the final product reflects the development team's own creativity.

The broader numbers are striking. Of the 4,397 products listed as Next Fest demos on SteamDB, 551 carry the AI Content Disclosed user tag. Last week alone, over 300 games launched on Steam and 120 had AI disclosures. Steam's tagging system can be gamed, but absent a coordinated effort to falsely flag games, that's a significant share of new releases. Notably absent from the top ten are Mortal Shell 2 and Valor Mortis, the new first-person Soulslike from the Ghostrunner developers.

PC Gamer notes that browsing Next Fest this week has turned into a habit of scrolling straight to where the AI disclosure usually sits on a store page — skipping the description, the trailer, and the screenshots entirely. That's not a great user experience, and given how widespread player antipathy toward AI-generated content has become, it feels like Steam is overdue for a proper AI content filter.