Valve is giving Steam Achievements a fresh look, with the introduction of a new system called Achievement Sets that are designed to reflect the longer lifespan of modern games. While that’s the initial purpose, Sets also promise the ability to segment out the various aspects of a game to make it clear if you’ve mastered the single-player side and simply don’t touch multiplayer, for example. Alongside this comes the addition of time-limited Seasonal Achievements, and you can try it all now via the Steam client beta.
“Games today live longer than ever, continuing to receive updates through new DLC, expansions, and seasons,” the Steam developer writes. “But achievements added with new game content can be hard to discover and can accidentally break the completion status of players who have already finished the game.” I still look back at my old 100% for the original Binding of Isaac, which was lost to the winds of time when developer Florian Himsl released a late final update – a generous act for players, but one that took away my completionist marker.
With the new system, achievements will be separated out into blue (base game) and purple (DLC). The latter will not be included in your overall game progress until you’ve got access to them, typically by buying the add-on in question. Alongside these two overarching groups, developers can set up more specific categories, such as assigning them to different game modes or individual expansions. That should make it much clearer right up top which parts of a game you’ve mastered.
The other major change with this is the introduction of Seasonal Achievements. This will add “the ability for game developers to archive individual achievements or entire Achievement Sets.” Valve says this should be used any time an achievement can no longer be unlocked, explaining, “We think there are a lot of fun ways games can take advantage of the temporary nature this can add, such as adding achievements to season-based games or enabling time-limited holiday achievements.”
Naturally, you might be worried about FOMO, but Valve has good news. “Archived achievements won’t show up on the profile pages of users who missed the unlock, nor block their progress towards completing a set or game.” This should have the added benefit of fixing games that have become impossible to hit 100% on, such as those with multiplayer-specific achievements where the mode has since been shut down by the developer.
To bring this all together comes a new-look achievements page, which summarizes your progress across each Achievement Set alongside individual breakdowns. You’re able to toggle global stats and per-achievement rates here, and compare your progress with up to three other friends. Because this takes into account the achievements available to each individual player, the total percentages might vary from person to person.
Valve has also “rebuilt a few areas where achievements are displayed.” The old ‘Perfect Games’ tab has been rebranded to ‘Completed,’ and you can expand it to show both fully completed games and those where you’ve finished specific Sets. The latter of these can now also be put into your Completionist Showcase on your profile page. Finally, the new system will recognize games that were played via Steam Family Sharing.
Steam Achievement Sets are available to test now via the Steam client beta.Head here for instructions on how to join if you want to give your feedback on this new feature.
Valve currently lists a total of 17 games that support the new Achievement Sets. This features several of its heavy hitters like Portal 2, TF2, and Left 4 Dead 2, along with a selection of other games that includes American Truck Simulator and ETS 2, Forza Horizon 5, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4, both Powerwash Simulator games, Dredge, Against the Storm, Flock Around, Lego Batman, He Is Coming, and multiple Paradox games: Crusader Kings 3, Age of Wonders 4, and Victoria 3.