Fallbearers Demo Review
Steam Next Fest is overwhelming, with a massive pile of demos and many AI‑generated titles that feel like junk. It’s tough for anyone with limited free time to wade through the slop and find something worth playing. To help, creators have started sharing ad hoc slop-free recommendation lists on social media, along with browser plugins and other tools that flag games with a genAI disclosure. Even with these filters, there’s still a lot to sift through, so I’m adding my own pick: the demo for Fallbearers.
I discovered Fallbearers on Bluesky, drawn in by its trailer. The game blends Bennet Foddy’s QWOP‑style track‑and‑field challenge with the “Coffin Flop” gag from Tim Robinson’s HBO sketch show I Think You Should Leave. In Fallbearers you control two Victorian‑era pallbearers, either solo or with a friend, as they haul a coffin from hearse to grave.
The controls are simple: you set the speed, decide when to jump, and manage how high you hold the slippery load. Navigating busy streets filled with manholes, steep inclines, and the occasional malicious bulldog adds a fun challenge. The demo is surprisingly short, but it’s a blast to experiment with timing and teamwork. One player can manage, but two players make it a hilarious co‑op experience. You can fail a set number of times before the corpse flops out of the coffin and the game ends. The full version promises more terrain, including snowy areas that require skis, though no release date is set yet. I suspect it will launch somewhere between the Sloppy Steaks cooking sim and the Dan Flashes Dressmaker DLC.