Steam Digital Tabletop Fest Kicks Off Later This Month: What To Expect

Valve has announced that it will hosting the first-ever Steam Digital Tabletop Fest later this month. The festival will explore titles that cross the boundary between physical and digital games, highlighting a number of digital board games or games that were inspired by board and tabletop games during the five-day event. While it sounds like the final pieces about the festival are still falling into place, Valve has already shared some early details about it.

For starters, the Steam Digital Tabletop Fest will run from Wednesday, October 21st to Monday the 26th. Valve won't be hosting the show alone either, as it will be teaming up with Auroch Digital. During the event, we'll see virtual let's plays, panels, and speakers from some fairly big names in tabletop gaming.

For instance, Steve Jackson – the person behind famous tabletop games like Munchkin and Ogre – is listed as one of the speakers. We'll also hear from Sandy Petersen of Call of Cthulhu fame, Games Workshop co-founder Ian Livingstone, and Wingspan creator Elizabeth Hargrave. Some events to look forward to include virtual panels on games about Mars and on games featuring Cthulhu, along with livestreams featuring Plague Inc: Evolved, Othercide, and Gloomhaven.

Tabletop games have blown up in popularity over the last couple of decades, and not only have they inspired a number of games on Steam, but the store also hosts a large number of digital board games as well. So, it's not really a surprise to see Valve hosting a tabletop gaming festival, given that tabletop gaming and digital gaming are two sides of the same coin these days.

While Valve's news post about the festival doesn't confirm it outright, we wouldn't be surprised to see discounts on some of the games featured during the festival. We'll let you know when more is confirmed, but for now, tabletop fans should mark their calendars for October 21st at 10 AM Pacific.