Singapore, Singapore, June 17, 2025 - Steam Next Fest: June Edition 2025 featured over 2,600 demos from around the world, among them high-budget titles like UFL, Dispatch, Wildgate, and Jump Ship. RIFTSTORM found itself competing with 1,000 other titles in the action category and over 300 titles sharing its “roguelite” tag, and even with the immense competition it managed to carve itself a spot among the most-played demos at Next Fest.
For the Confiction team, the honor came as a surprise but also as validation for the risks they took going into the event, having dedicated two short months on a product pivot. One that created a new mode that was “…messy, borderline abusive to older GPUs, and we’ve had to issue a stability warning for players trying to survive too long.” to quote Confiction, CCO, Igor Tanzil.
This special mission, dubbed Operation 1411 mixed tower-defense style mechanics with an extraction meta and became one of the most played sections of RIFTSTORM. Igor, notes the team’s prescience of needing to stand out from the crowd as impetus for adding a last-minute game mode as detailed in this short article.
As the team celebrates this milestone, Confiction CEO, Arief Widhiyasa, reflects, “Steam Next Fest was a trial by fire for us. Our systems were tested, our design intent was pushed to the limit, and somehow our team pulled it off. This is a big win for the team, and everything they’ve put into getting this demo out.”
The RIFTSTORM Demo is remain live on Steam as the team continues to focus on preparing the game for its eventual launch.