The latest Steam Next Fest features a pile of Palworld-likes as witches and airships battle over the creature-collecting survival subgenre

The latest Steam Next Fest features a pile of Palworld-likes as witches and airships battle over the creature-collecting survival subgenre | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these RPG ‘We lost things such as physics in games:’ The dev behind my most anticipated RPG thinks players are craving more interactive games, not just ‘moving around in a static 3D environment’ RPG I applaud this gacha game for ditching anime characters for puppets, but it still can’t escape the pitfalls of a post-Genshin Impact world Strategy Steam Next Fest hasn’t even started, and its first must-play demo is already here RPG The new game from Disco Elysium’s studio feels like the first Christmas after your parents’ divorce Card Game If you’ve ever had a crippling Vampire Survivors or Slay the Spire habit, avoid Vampire Crawlers at all costs Horror Burglin’ Gnomes is the next great friend-slop game that everyone with a PC and at least one other friend should check out Roguelike The devs of a promising Slay the Spire-alike are delaying their game to Dodge and Roll away from Slay the Spire 2’s launch: ‘You’ll be playing it, we’ll be playing it, everyone will be playing it’ RPG The dev behind my top upcoming RPG is a Hungarian chef who thought ‘if not now, then when?’ and learned coding from scratch to make his dream ‘eurojank’ masterpiece Sim I thought Fishing Shop Simulator was a joke after I saw mechs in ancient Rome, but after two hours with its demo, I’m hooked Adventure ‘We never had plans to update Peak at all’: Aggro Crab reveals that it doesn’t want ‘to be a studio that works on one game forever’ Survival & Crafting The best survival games on PC RPG The best King’s Field-likes on PC Life Sim Starsand Island is the first can’t-miss cozy game of 2026 and it’s already taken over 20 hours from me Roguelike Imagine if politics were full of monsters! Haha, no, I mean fun monsters like vampires, orcs, and goblins who use cards to hurl insults and smears at each other Games The best laptop games PopularNEW: PC Gamer Clips!Arc RaidersBest PC gearFalloutGame Quizzes Games Survival & Crafting The latest Steam Next Fest features a pile of Palworld-likes as witches and airships battle over the creature-collecting survival subgenre News By Lincoln Carpenter published 23 February 2026 I can only assume there’s a Nintendo lawyer seething somewhere. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Envar Games) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. 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Subscribe to our newsletter When Palworld sold 12 million Steam copies in under two weeks, two things felt like they’d become inevitable: First, that Nintendo’s lawyers would take any opening they could find to punish Pocketpair for daring to release what many had been calling Pokemon: Gun Version well before its launch, and second, that we’d eventually see Palworld prompt its own imitators with hopes of pulling off a similar smash hit.While Nintendo threw down the lawsuit gauntlet within a year of Palworld’s launch, the nature of videogame development timelines meant that if a new subgenre was spinning up, it’d be a bit longer before we saw the evidence. With the kickoff of the latest Steam Next Fest, however, it seems the time has finally come. The age of the Palworld-like is upon us. (Image credit: Envar Games)Next Fest has brought a bumper crop of creature-collecting, base-building, open-world-survival-crafting demos. Here are the heaviest hitters among Palworld’s latest competitors. Related articles Palworld takes the ‘red rag to a bull’ approach to its Nintendo lawsuit, announces ‘a 2-player competitive card game’ ‘Not bad for a dead game’: Palworld managed to get four nominations in Steam’s Best of 2025 Awards, including 2nd place for most played game Palworld shows off concept art for new pals as part of its 2-year anniversary celebration as Pocketpair’s CEO promises fans ‘we will do everything we can to meet your expectations’ Palworld, but witches (Image credit: Envar Games)Of the selection of emerging Palworld-inspired survival games, Witchspire is the one that feels like it has the most cohesive vision. Rather than generic base-building survivalists, you play as a coven of novice witches who can conjure structures, harvest resources with magic, and—for the Little Guy Labor Force factor—defeat magical creatures in b