Conventions shutting down due to the ongoing pandemic have hit gaming enthusiasts hard in 2020, but there’s no gaming niche more affected than tabletop gamers. While video game players have been able to continue playing online, tabletop fans have had to largely give up their local groups in addition to conventions.Valve, for its part, is trying to make up for that in a small way, as starting late October, Valve will be hosting aSteam Digital Tabletop Festjust for fans.
The Steam Digital Tabletop Fest is described as a celebration oftabletop gamesavailable both in a box and digitally. The event will start on October 21 and will last through October 26. Across the event’s six days, Valve says that it will host a variety of digital Let’s Plays, panels, developer talks, and other digital broadcasts focusing on various currently available and upcoming Steam tabletop games. For the time being, only five events for the Steam Digital Tabletop Fest have been revealed.
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Two of the five events that have been announced are going to be panels. The first will a panel specifically about games related to the planet Mars. In this panel, creators of games likeTerraforming MarsandMars Horizonwill join with “actual space agency staff and scientists” to talk about how well Mars is represented. The second panel is for Cthulhu games likeCall of CthulhuandAchtung! Cthulhu Tactics, who reflect on the cultural impact of their love letters to Lovecraftian horror.
The other three announced events are for individual games and may include several sub-events.Gloomhavenis one of these three games, with the game presenting a livestream with several developers. They’ll talk about the next major update forGloomhaven’s Early Access. The other two games that will be showcased areOtherside, a tactical-RPG, andPlague Inc: Evolved. ThePlague Incevent will feature designer James Vaughan, who will compare both the physical and digital versions of the game.
Valve says to expect even more tabletop games to be represented during the Steam Digital Tabletop Fest. They’ll be introduced in the time between now and the Steam Digital Tabletop Fest’s start, though the only other game mentioned in the post isTharsis.
Hopefully, Valve has more plans in store to make the Steam Digital Tabletop Fest an even bigger event. Valve could turn the event into a major sale, discounting the dozens of digital tabletop games available on the storefront. It could also work with partners to makea ton of tabletop gamesfree-to-play for the duration of the convention. That would make it feel much more like the real thing. Expect to hear more information about theSteam Digital Tabletop Festleading up to its October 21 start.
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