Steam Mystery Fest will offer discounts and demos in February

The event will focus on games about “the spirit of investigation and solving mysteries” and will include not only discounts but new demos on “current and upcoming games”. Valve announced the fest earlier this week, inviting game developers to submit their eligible games for inclusion.

Earlier this year, Valve announced some tweaks to how they operated sales, lowering the ‘cooling off period’ between discounts for developers and introducing several genre-specific sale events. In 2022 those included sales and fests dedicated to sims, JRPGs, racing games, roguelikes, survival games, and more.

Mystery games – particularly those about detectives solving crimes – have traditionally been in short supply. That’s unusual given the prevalence of crime shows, movies and novels, although more understandable given the challenges of designing a mystery that players themselves can solve.

Obviously, there’s no way of knowing what games will be discounted in February, but the timing is good.