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11 Tears of Metal had a free public demo, distributed as its own separate application rather than as part of the main store listing. It was withdrawn around the Early Access release and is no longer available. It was released on October 2, 2025, ahead of that month's Steam Next Fest, and covers the campaign's first Act. The demo was available in English and Simplified Chinese only, while the full game ships with ten interface languages.
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33 What the Demo Contains
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55 The demo was a self-contained slice rather than a timed trial. It ran from the start of the campaign through to a boss fight against Gilles the Hog, and it could be played solo or in the full four-player co-op party.
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77 ContentIncluded in the DemoCampaignThe first Act, ending in the Gilles the Hog boss fightEmblemsFour clans, described by Paper Cult as incomplete families drawn from the eight planned for the full gameCharmsMore than 30, unlocked and then purchased through challengesEquipmentWeapons, trinkets and skins for both the hero and the armyModesSolo and up to four-player online co-op, plus the Challenge System for higher difficultyMeta progressionA slice of the village layer, plus shrines, unlocks and secret discoveriesTrackingA content percentage tracker showing how much of the demo has been uncovered
88 Reception
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1010 The demo performed well beyond the studio's expectations. During the October 2025 Steam Next Fest it climbed to 16th by concurrent player count and earned a place on the event's list of the 50 most-played demos, while holding an Overwhelmingly Positive review rating. By July 2026 it had passed 250,000 plays.
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1212 Paper Cult used the demo, and the two open betas that preceded it, as its main feedback channel. The second open beta alone logged 33,526 runs and 8,643 hours of play and generated 231 tracked development tasks. Changes credited to that feedback include a rework of the Gilles the Hog fight, a rebalance of the Emblem pool, more ways to heal, and the addition of a dedicated Warcry button.
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1414 Daily Challenges
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1616 During Steam Next Fest the demo added Daily Challenges through the Emporium: short, deliberately brutal runs with unusual conditions. Surviving one awarded a badge, and collecting badges unlocked a cosmetic frame that displays in online campaigns.
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1818 Availability
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2020 Paper Cult announced in June 2026 that the demo would be removed on July 6, 2026 ahead of the Early Access launch, on the grounds that it no longer reflected the state of the game and that demo saves would not carry to the full version. The studio then reversed that decision: on July 7, 2026, after the demo passed 250,000 plays, it said the demo would stay available for the time being, and it was still downloadable on the morning of the Early Access launch.
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2222 It did not survive the launch. The demo's separate store listing no longer resolves, its store page redirects away, and the main Tears of Metal store page carries no demo download. Nothing published announces the removal; the listing simply stopped existing around the July 22, 2026 Early Access release.
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2424 Demo progress never transferred. Save files from the demo do not carry over into the Early Access build, so anyone who moved across from the demo started again from scratch.
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