This Steam Next Fest's second-biggest demo so far is like Valorant meets Paper Mario, complete with anime girls

Online shooters like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Valorant collide with anime girls and 2D Paper Mario-esque visuals in Strinova, a unique competitive game with a new demo already dominating the charts this Steam Next Fest .

Strinova offers a one-of-a-kind shooter experience - players can freely swap their characters between 3D and 2D forms, transforming them from anime-esque figures that look as though they were plucked straight out of Genshin Impact into Paper Mario-like people that resemble themed stickers. It's a feature that the genre has certainly never seen before, but it's already proving a popular one with the game's demo currently dominating.

Thanks to this month's Steam Next Fest, fans can get a quick glimpse of the multidimensional shooter ahead of its upcoming release - and boy, are they. Compared to every other demo now available for download during Valve 's seasonal event, Strinova's boasts thousands of players and is second only to Delta Force . The charts speak for themselves, and I'd argue they point toward an unsurprisingly successful future for the free-to-play game.

If you'd like to hop into the fray and find out just why so many people are obsessed with the shooter-meets-anime-meets-origami for yourself, you can test the Steam Next Fest demo now for free. There's no telling when the official public launch will happen just yet, but developers previously cited a potential release window in an interview with Dengeki Online , which falls sometime between October and December 2024.

Check out our roundup of other new games coming this year and beyond for even more to look forward to.