It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, probably. After years of rumours, Steam’s library is finally getting a fancy new look, and I’m into it.
While this visual overhaul won’t extend to the store and other parts of the interface (at least for now), the most important part of Steam (where your precious games live) will be getting a much-needed makeover.
Valve showed off the new library view during GDC, highlighting a pretty drastic redesign with larger game thumbnails and more categories. Take a look below.
Valve’s Alden Kroll explained:
The biggest thing we’re introducing is the Steam library homepage. This provides an opportunity for players to see ‘what else is happening in the games that I play?’
Other swanky new features include vertical thumbnails that can be scaled to show larger icons or more games, and a module at the top that displays some of the games you’ve been playing recently.
The biggest new addition is probably the inclusion of the tags that Steam has been using in the store for years now. These will now carry over to your library of games, so if you’re one of those people that ends up buying dozens of games in a Steam sale, you can now search through your library to more easily find the kind of game you might fancy playing.
You’ll also be getting an activity feed so you can see what your friends have been up to, and below your friends list you’ll find a section dedicated to DLC, and achievements.
There’s no solid release date for when this redesign will be rolled out, but PC Gamer has reported we can expect a beta release this summer. Maybe for its next trick Valve can introduce some kind of actual quality control and properly keep an eye on the kind of games it allows on its store.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.