Steam Next Fest, Valve’s indie showcase featuring free demos for upcoming PC games, had the most demo downloads in Next Fest history last month, and among the top titles was the asymmetric VR game Davigo.

Valve announced the 50 most-played demos that made it big on June’s edition of Next Fest, something the company said accounted for 11.4 million demos played across the board.

And Davigo seems to have resonated with Next Fest visitors in June, becoming the only VR game to make the list. Valve ordered its list by unique player count, and Davigo managed to rank 25th among all games (re: not just VR titles).

Featuring its own brand of David vs. Goliath-inspired combat gameplay, Davigo lets VR players take on the role of a massive giant who must defeat one or more PC players armed with rockets.

With development started in 2019 by Davigo Studio, the asymmetric VR game has since graduated to its third Alpha, which is made exclusively available to Patreon supporters of the project.

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Notably, the Next Fest demo featured cross-compatibility with the game’s Alpha 3.3, which no doubt helped populate servers. Not only that, but PC players have historically been able to play against VR players for free.

The game, which supports both PC VR headsets and Quest natively, doesn’t have a launch date yet, with the game on Steam marked as “coming soon.”

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.

  • This is one of the most awaited VR indie games…

  • ViRGiN

    Most played demo of a PCVR game, that runs like made exclusively for Oculus GO?

    Yeah, PCVR is totally not dead lmao. Every time new Quest games are announced, butthurt elitists complain about lacking graphics… and yet this is the most played crap?

    Their Patreon is pretty busy – they are clearly making more money without having a released product, compared to already released, “proper” games like Hubris or LONN. LMAO.

    VaLvE DeCkArD wHeN?

    • gothicvillas

      Why you are so poisonous? No one cares mate. Just enjoy your life.

      • ViRGiN

        I’m not sure why it bothers you so much?
        Poisonous is trying to supress other people voices.

        I’ve been into VR from the very beginning, and I saw how everything played out. How jaded PCVR users are because of Quest existence. No reason not to call bullshit out!

        • gothicvillas

          Not that it bothers me.. I see your posts here often and wonder what makes you so “edgy”.
          Same me bro, I started my vr journey with dk2. Got so hooked up, I bought HTC vive day it came out, then psvr1, index, Quest 1 and 2, now psvr2. I’m excited for vr scene in general. It’s just shame it’s so fkng shallow, not many games and all that. I’m not bitter about any platform. All kinda suck in a way. I want big titles like anyone else.
          Let’s be friends and stop this bitching. Maybe you need a hug?

        • Andrew Jakobs

          I wonder what you call “the beginning”….

          • ViRGiN

            No, you don’t. But if you really need to know – outside of using but not owning VR of the 90s, I started with Sony HMZ-T1 (barely VR) in 2011/2012, I tried DK1 in 2012, and got my own unit in 2013.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            Yes I did wonder, so yet again you were completely wrong like many times. Well, my first forte into VR was in the arcade hall with the original dactyl nightmare in 91, had some books on creating your own VR headset back (but never created one as it was still too expensive) and my first VR headset is (as I still own it) actually the Forte VFX-1 (bought it in 96), also bought a second hand CyberMAXX in 97 but that was more like watching through icecubes), and had the Vuzix VR920, my next unit was the DK2 which I never actually used as 5 minutes using it made me really motion sick (which I never had with the vfx-1 as you could change everything, focus and ipd, but ofcourse it really was just much less FOV). After that I had a couple of months the original Vive from work, and since nov 2019 I have my Vive Pro, which I complemented 2 years ago with the Wireless module, which is why I really never want to go back to wired VR. Also bought myself a PSVR1 headset hoping to connect it to the PC (As I don’t own a PS4), but never got around doing so, not even after getting the HDMI adapter for free.

          • ViRGiN

            I used those early 90s headsets quite a lot – but it was never really that immersive, nor compatibible with many games or even affordable. It was never truly a product to desire.
            VR really started again with SONY HMZ-T1 release, which had two 720p screens in a somewhat compact (but uncomfortable) form factor. Shortly after DK1 came out, and it revolutionized VR by being ‘full screen’ through much bigger fov (often not achieved till this day by most products) and head tracking which made it trully immersive.
            Before DK2 was a thing, there was Durovis Dive, where the German pioneer ported Quake 2 to run in side-by-side mode on an android phone. It was awesome. Paired with Note 3 1080p OLED screen, this was much better experience than PCVR, but you couldn’t really get proper ‘gear vr’ for phones back then, so you had to build your own. Later there was also port of Quake 1, and you could supersample the image – it became unplayable, but the jump in quality was jawbreaking.
            During this time period, Sony released two more updated versions for the HMZ series, and they even had developer version available in Japan with head tracking i think. They also released wireless adapter at some point, to stream your HDMI sources.
            Later I went through pretty much everything, DK2, Vive Pre, Vive, Rift, and everything else relevant, but at that point they are just spec-different, nothing provides better experience other than better… software. Software that is lacking to this day.

            Seeing this game featured as the most played “fest” vr demo in 2023 is embarassing state of affairs. It looks “no different” than Dactyl Nightmare VR from 1991 lol. 32 years later this is the most played demo. Day to day PCVR activity is really no different – Gorilla Tag, Beat Saber, The Slopes, Candy Smash VR, Killer Klownz, Machine Learning are dominating the top seller AND most played lists.

          • xyzs

            So you are stupid AND that old at the same time?

          • ViRGiN

            And you’re a bully?

        • Wukong robotics

          Its not that PCVR is dead its that VR FOR GAMING IS DEAD. VR for industrial training, architectural visualization and enterprise 3d applications has a niche. But VR FOR GAMING IS DEAD. so that means the Quest is Dead too. at least the PCVR will survive with the enterprise money. Quest will be sold for 5 dollars at garage sales soon.

          • ViRGiN

            Nobody makes PCVR headsets. Quest is getting third release. Yeah, pcvr has died.

          • Wukong robotics

            im using it for a project for industrial space and theres lot of projects inside this old school industrial company using it. you just dont know about it because you are a gamer. so you view the industry in terms of amount of games and units of games sold. and so you think quest has a lead but its just a dust collector in your own closet while you come here pontificating the death of pcvr your own headset collects dust. pfffffftt

          • ViRGiN

            you came here with your enterprise info to a thread about consumer-oriented entertainment.

            my quests sees regular use, and almost never connects to PC.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Didn’t know this one. Wonder how many of these demo’s actually do go on to be completed games. A couple of years ago an excellent demo blahblah rose, can’t remember the actual name, a ww2 VR game, was shown, but it never got an actual release, which is a big shame.

    • ViRGiN

      Completed games? They will be stuck in early access till the end of time.
      Why would someone quit abusing this label? Early Access strips all your rights to criticise anything, because, you know, it’s early access.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        Why don’t you jus shut the F up with all your negative crap all the time. This wasn’t even an early access game, like many of these games that get a demo during these steam fests..
        Also always thumbing down people even though nothing the say is negative (which is why these days when I see your name I just thumb down as that’s what you also do to everybody).
        yeah we get it, you hate steam and love your quest (which is a great headset, but also still used very VERY much for PCVR).

        • ViRGiN

          > thumbing down people even though nothing the say is negative (which is why these days when I see your name I just thumb down as that’s what you also do to everybody)
          LMAO, you are just butthurt. in this very thread you can see i didn’t downvote the other guy who also felt a bit jaded.
          so, as always, you are just spreading misinformation.

          just because half of PCVR is using quest headset doesn’t mean that it’s used “very VERY much for PCVR” (whatever exactly that means).

          it is estimated that quest 2 has sold about 20 million units.

          VRLFG reports 6425 players online right now. quadruple it, and tell me how many of these users are using quest headset to access pcvr.
          as far as i’m aware there are no stats for usage. just steam hardware survey for what was connected the month prior.

          maybe valve index users spend 700% more time in vr?

        • Ad

          Lifehack, get blocked by that person.