Haunted Paws, the cosy co-op horror game in which two puppies set out to rescue their owner from a haunted mansion, opened its Steam demo on 8 October. Studio LazyFlock released it on the day of the Triple-i Initiative, an online showcase of independent games. According to the studio, the visuals, sound, movement and camera have all been reworked since last year’s playtest. Players who kept asking for a cat got their wish too, in a rather unexpected form. There is still no release date, even though the game sits 45th among the most wishlisted unreleased games on Steam this Saturday.
At a glance
The Haunted Paws demo has been free on Steam since 8 October, and it’s built for two players.
You can play as a kitten dressed up as a puppy, a request from players during the last playtest.
LazyFlock’s game has passed 900,000 wishlists and is also coming to Switch and Switch 2, with no date yet.
What the Haunted Paws demo offers
The game’s Steam page sums up the premise in a line: your human has been kidnapped by evil creatures and locked away in a haunted mansion, and it falls to you and a friend, each playing a puppy, to bring her home. The puppies dig, sniff and bark their way through puzzles, and every creature you meet hides a past that you uncover by defeating it.
In LazyFlock’s demo announcement on Steam, the studio says this build fixes and expands on last October’s playtest. It lists updated graphics, refreshed audio and music, smoother movement, camera improvements and new content. Anyone who played the playtest has good reason to go back in.
Before setting off, you build a dog that can look like your own: pick a breed, choose the fur colour, add a few distinctive markings, then dress it up with accessories. The store page also says you can invite a friend for free, so two players won’t need two copies once the full game is out.
Watch it too
Haunted Paws lets you play a kitten dressed up as a puppy
A kitten in a dog costume, by popular demand
A day after the demo went live, LazyFlock confirmed what some players had already spotted: you can play as a kitten in Haunted Paws. During the last playtest, plenty of players asked to play as a cat, the studio explains. It agreed on one condition, that the kitten wears a dog costume to join the puppies on their adventure.
And the joke goes all the way. You can set her bark to “meow”, yet every character in the game still treats her as a puppy. It’s a small touch, but it shows a studio that genuinely listens to its community.
Haunted Paws passes 900,000 wishlists and heads to Switch 2
Interest in the game is real, and the studio has put a number on it. In its development diary published after gamescom, LazyFlock said it had passed 900,000 wishlists on Steam during the show. Haunted Paws was also confirmed for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, and shown on the Switch 2 indie booth.
The game went on to win the Find Your Next Game indie award at gamescom 2026, run by the German magazine GameStar and decided by a public vote. The same diary revealed three new chapters, the mansion, the circus and the portal, along with two bosses, the Bull Monster and the Bird Monster, each guarding a different part of the house.
Valve’s ranking of the most wishlisted unreleased games tells the same story, with Haunted Paws in 45th place this Saturday out of 5,327 games listed. Very few indie games without a release date climb that high.
Still waiting on a release date
On the release front, the Steam page still reads “to be announced”, and only the PC version is listed there for now. The demo is therefore the only way to play until LazyFlock sets out a schedule for the PC and Switch versions.
If you enjoy indie horror demos, the one for Deadpact, a survival horror puzzle game covers its whole first act, played solo and in a far darker mood. For a first taste of Haunted Paws, the free demo is enough to get a feel for the game.
Upcoming release dates and major updates are tracked in our games calendar, which you can filter by platform.