Steam Next Fest Generative AI Usage Jumps To 36 Percent

Steam Next Fest AI Usage Has Jumped From One In Five To One In Three Published Oct 20, 2026, 3:53 AM EDT Sam Woods is TheGamer’s Senior Reporter. He’s been in games journalism since 2020 and has undertaken a variety of roles in that time. These have included roles such as SEO Editor, Managing Editor at DualShockers, and Global Head of Gaming, and he's also been seen on the BBC. He was promoted to the Senior Reporter position in 2025 following a series of high-quality reports and exclusives for TheGamer. Since 2020, Sam has written over 3,000 articles and specializes in telling the stories of the people behind the games. He’s interviewed the biggest game directors, some of the industry’s top talents, told the stories of how indie games came to be, and spoken to players about what really makes them tick. He’s also interviewed some of the world’s biggest musical artists to find out how the medium has inspired their work, and TV and Film actors about their roles in video game adaptations. He even hosted a PAX panel in 2021 and made a documentary in 2024 surrounding the creation of a Disney game. Alongside this, Sam focuses on breaking news. He got the scoop on Perfect Dark’s cancellation, provided context on some AI drama, and revealed that Lady Dimitrescu’s actress would love to step back into the character’s giant shoes. These articles have been picked up by the biggest gaming sites, including IGN, GameSpot, and PC Gamer. He also loves to dive into the numbers behind the games. Sam’s journey in games journalism has taken him all over the world. He’s covered Gamescom in Germany, Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, and Tokyo Game Show in Japan, each on three occasions. He’s been learning Japanese since 2024 with the intention of identifying and translating Japanese-language news and bringing it to English-language audiences first, something he’s done countless times. Sam’s first review was 2020’s Battletoads reboot, and he’s since reviewed games in The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, and Pokemon franchises. Sign in to your TheGamer account In February, we reported that Steam users were frustrated by the growing use of AI-generated artwork at Steam Next Fest. A few months later, it was confirmed that almost 20 percent of games in June's Steam Next Fest used some form of generative AI in their creation. October's event has now rolled around, and we've crunched the numbers again, finding that more than one in three spotlighted games have used generative AI at some point during development. October's Steam Next Fest Has Seen A 16 Percent Increase In AI-Generated Titles This year's Steam Next Fest spotlights 7,145 new and upcoming games, according to SteamDB. Using a range of filters that exclude games holding Steam's backend AI tag, that number drops significantly to 4,549. That means 2,595 games, or over 36 percent of titles shown, during this event feature some element of generative AI. In June's event, that number was just over 19 percent, meaning that in just a four-month period, the number of games has increased by 16 percent. Gamers are pushing back, and many of the top games on the event's charts are AI-free, but this reflects a worrying trend as generative AI development grows. This is only worsened by the likes of Tim Sweeney and Epic Games pushing the technology. While Steam Next Fest focuses on indie titles, triple-A titles aren't immune to the complaints. Just a few days ago, Total War: Shogun 2's remaster was removed from the Valve-owned platform and replaced by the original version, due to "Overwhelmingly Negative" reviews stemming from AI upscaled assets. The technology isn't only being used to create new games, either. Over the last few weeks, we've seen the term "vibecoding" used more than ever. It comes as players use services like Claude to decompile older games' source code, making it easier to port to PC. Just today, we reported on how Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has received a vibecoded PC port, and games like Halo: Combat Evolved, Call of Duty: Black Ops 1's Zombies mode, and Super Mario Sunshine have all received browser versions. steam Brand Valve Original Release Date September 12, 2003 Original MSRP (USD) N/A Weight N/A Hardware Versions Steam