Steam's latest Game Festival features 500 playable demos, starts Wednesday

Valve has announced the return of its increasingly regular Steam Game Festival next week, bringing with it 500 playable demos, developer livestreams, and more.

This fifth outing for Valve's indie-focussed Game Festival event is scheduled to begin Wednesday, 3rd February, at 6pm in the UK (that's 10am PT), and the festivities cease one week later, on Tuesday, 9th February, at the same time.

With 500 playable demos available for the duration of the event, it's a wonderful, if rather intimidating, proposition for those that like to dig around in search of undiscovered gems. And Valve has notably avoided using the words "limited-time" on its Game Festival promo page this time around, so I'm hoping most of these demos will be sticking around after the event to give people a fighting change of working through the most intriguing ones.

Alongside the demos, Valve will once again be promoting a schedule of developer live-streams and chats, although full details of these have yet to go live.

Likewise, there's currently limited word on the games getting the demo treatment this Sunday, with only a few being teased in the accompanying Steam Game Festival announcement trailer. Confirmed titles include Black Book, Genesis Noir, and Narita Boy, but there'll obviously be plenty more when proceedings get underway early next week.