The Game Awards 2019 was a great show last year, having 73% more viewership than 2018's show. It also featured the debut of The Steam Game Festival, and we will soon see it make a return much earlier than expected.
A Steam Community announcement for the upcoming game Raji: An Ancient Epic mentions the festival by name and states that it will be arriving soon:
"From the upcoming Wednesday (and for the duration of the Steam Game Festival) you will have the chance to play an all-new demo of Raji: An Ancient Epic," the announcement stated. "This demo will let you play through the first level of the game - the ruins."
"However, this demo will only be available to you while the Steam Game Festival is going on, once the event ends, the demo will disappear as well - so don’t miss out on this unique opportunity."
One might note that we just experienced this event at last year's The Game Awards — it's far too early for it The Game Awards to be happening again. Does this mean that The Steam Game Festival will be happening more than once a year?
When is The Steam Game Festival?
The Steam Community announcement is dated for yesterday and states that a demo for Raji will be available "from the upcoming Wednesday." This means we will be seeing The Steam Game Festival debut on March 18, 2020.
Notably, The Steam Game Festival last took place roughly 3 months ago. This could mean that it's going to be a quarterly event — and that could explain why The Game Awards' Geoff Keighley bowed out of attending E3 2020. If this does happen every three months or so, the next scheduled event would place it right during E3's usual timeslot.
We've sent out requests for more information to the developer, publisher, and Mr. Keighley himself and will update this article when we receive a reply. In the meantime, it looks like you'll be able to try out Raji: An Ancient Epic pretty darn soon. For now, you can add it to your wishlist on Steam.
What do you think of The Steam Game Festival making a return? Would you like to see this event happen multiple times a year? Let us know in the comments below!