Xbox Winter Game Fest Brings 35+ Free Demos To Consoles Next Week

Update: Xbox has published the full list of 37 free demos, available to play right now!

Original story: To celebrate the arrival of The Game Awards next week, Xbox is bringing over 35 free demos to consoles on December 7th as part of something called the Winter Game Fest, and they're all going to be for "upcoming unreleased games."

These are part of the ID@Xbox program, so don't expect any AAA behemoths in the bunch, but nevertheless there should be plenty of intriguing indies to try. Here are some of the confirmed titles from Microsoft:

• Loot River: Set in a series of procedurally generated labyrinths, Loot River is a dungeon crawling, action roguelike that combines the tense, real-time combat, and dark fantasy stylings of Dark Souls with the spatial block-shifting puzzles of Tetris.

• Death Trash: Featuring a post-apocalyptic world where cosmic horrors long for humanity but are meet by punks with shotguns. It combines old-school role-playing, modern action gameplay, and player freedom. Create your own character and explore this unique handcrafted world.

• Blacktail: A retelling of Baba Yaga’s origin story set in surreal, grim Slavic folklore. A one-of-a-kind blend of exploration and intense archery combat with dark storytelling. Become a fearsome guardian of the forest or the terror nightmares are based on.

• The Tale of Bistun: A story-driven action-adventure game inspired by the 12^th Century tragic poem “Khosrow and Shirin.” You play as a stone carver who wakes on Mount Bistun with no memory of anything before that moment. An insidious blight has spread, bringing forth many dangerous foes. You must battle through mythical enemies and travel between the real world and an ethereal place of forgotten memories to discover the secret of your past.

• Nobody Saves the World: Complete quests to discover and swap between more than 15 varied and distinct forms. Mix and match abilities to unlock and complete even more challenging quests while exploring a vast overworld and its extensive dungeons, either solo or with a friend online, to stop The Calamity and save the world!

Various other titles in the Winter Game Fest were leaked recently via the Microsoft Store, but we haven't got the full list of all 35+ yet — the company says it'll be providing more details closer to the December 7th start date.

These demos will only be available until December 21st, and they represent “show floor demos” which means some of them are very early in development and aren't "necessarily indicative of the final product".

We'll circle back around with the full list of free demos over the next few days. This should be good!

Looking forward to this? Let us know down in the comments below.