A Sketchbook for Clues and a No-Handholding Detective Mode: Hope in the City Drops Its Updated Steam Next Fest Demo
As the October 2026 edition of Steam Next Fest kicks off from October 19 through October 26, Canadian developer Lofty Sky Entertainment (the award-winning team behind 2026 GDC Best in Play winner Sky of Tides and 2024 Peabody Award nominee Eternal Spring) and co-publisher NAGA Games have rolled out a major update for the playable demo of Hope in the City. Arriving just three weeks ahead of the full launch, this revamped build introduces two distinct difficulty settings (Story Mode and Detective Mode), expands localization to five languages, and overhauls apartment camera controls based on community feedback.
A Missing Family in Shenyang Investigated Through the Eyes of a 17-Year-Old Artist
Rather than casting players as a hardened police investigator, Hope in the City sets its narrative mystery in Shenyang, a major industrial hub in Northeast China rarely depicted in video games. Players step into the shoes of Hope Song (voiced in English by Angela Tran), a 17-year-old high school student and aspiring illustrator. While her classmates buckle under the intense pressure of the national college entrance exams, Hope escapes into her sketchbook until she returns home one evening to find her family’s apartment completely ransacked and both of her parents missing without a note or warning.
Confronted by reluctant neighbors and adults eager to avoid trouble, Hope realizes that her keen eye for visual detail is her only way forward. As Judith Cheung, Creative Director at Lofty Sky Entertainment, explains: “We set out to create a different kind of mystery, where observation, curiosity and creativity are your greatest tools, set against a part of Northeast China rarely explored in games.” Players can jump in right now by downloading the free trial directly from the official Hope in the City Steam page throughout the festival week.
Story Mode vs. Detective Mode: How the Sketchbook Deduction System Works
The core investigative loop of Hope in the City revolves around Hope’s notebook. As you explore neon-lit streets, neighborhood storefronts, shadowed alleyways, and the trashed rooms of the Song apartment, every visual anomaly or suspicious dialogue detail is captured as a hand-drawn sketch under the Thoughts tab. Opening the notebook allows you to pair two related sketches under the Form Insight prompt: for example, connecting the sketch of your missing parents with a mysterious heart-shaped locket containing a portrait of an unknown girl they were arguing about. Merging sketches produces an Insight, which can then be developed into a major Breakthrough to Craft Theory during tense conversations.
To accommodate both narrative adventure fans and hardcore mystery solvers, the updated Steam Next Fest demo introduces several key upgrades:
- Story Mode: Tailored for a smoother, more casual pace where players can focus on the urban thriller, stylized art direction, and full English voice acting without getting stuck on complex clue combinations.
- Detective Mode: Built for veteran investigators seeking a steeper analytical challenge, dialing back assistance when inspecting environments and linking sketches inside the notebook.
- Five Languages and Refined Camera Controls: Alongside full English audio, Simplified Chinese, and Korean, the updated demo adds Traditional Chinese and Japanese localization. Lofty Sky has also improved player perspective and movement inside the apartment while smoothing out camera transitions.
Standing out during October’s festival is no small feat at a time when Valve’s storefront has already shattered its all-time annual release record with over 21,388 new games in 2026. For players spending the week hunting down inventive indie mechanics alongside the playable demo for real-time spell-stealing deckbuilder KleptoMagia on Steam, Lofty Sky’s visual deduction system offers an immediately memorable hook.
My Benchmark Take: Testing this updated build of Hope in the City, the standout addition is easily the split between Story Mode and Detective Mode, paired with the noticeably tighter camera perspective inside the ransacked apartment. Detective games constantly walk a tightrope between pacing and genuine deduction: too much UI handholding spoils the thrill of solving a case, while overly obtuse clue-hunting stalls narrative momentum. By structuring Hope’s notebook into three clear tiers (Thoughts, Insights, and Breakthroughs) and letting players choose their level of investigative friction, Lofty Sky delivers a sharp mechanical backbone that matches its striking Shenyang art style.
November 11, 2026 Release Date Confirmed for PC and Xbox Series X|S
Originally slated for November 10, Hope in the City recently shifted its full launch by a single day to November 11, 2026, with the studio hinting at an upcoming appearance tied to the Golden Joystick Awards. The full game will launch day one across PC (Steam and Xbox on PC) and Xbox Series X|S, complete with Xbox Play Anywhere support for seamless cross-buy and cross-save progression.
The updated demo is live on Steam through October 26, 2026, giving mystery fans a full week to put their observational skills to the test in Detective Mode before Hope Song’s full investigation unfolds next month.
PC hardware enthusiast and competitive gamer, Arthur 'Heimdall' splits his time between France and the UK working in enterprise B2B software solutions. A business school graduate passionate about component benchmarking, he has been building, modding, and tuning PCs since childhood, optimizing every thermal degree and millisecond of display latency. An avid gamer across Assassin's Creed and sandbox titles, he forged his alliance with Grimtag and Chaya during late-night World of Warcraft raids before joining Pro-Gamer.
