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This is the new library view. The interface isn’t that different functionally, but it has a new coat of paint.
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Bigger changes came to the in-game overlay.
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You can now take notes for each game from within the overlay.
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You an pin notes (and other overlay windows too) with customizable transparency levels.
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Some small changes have been made to notifications to make them less overwhelming.
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PC gamers could easily make a joke that three things in life never change: death, taxes, and the classic look of Steam. One of those things just changed, though; Valve just released the most substantial overhaul to Steam in years, including a visual makeover and several new features.
Further, the company has brought the Mac and Linux versions of Steam closer to parity with the historically superior Windows version.
Valve says “the most impactful changes” are actually under the hood. The company’s developers put effort into achieving greater consistency between how things work in Steam for desktop, the TV-oriented Big Picture mode, and Steam Deck. This codebase overhaul means that new features that come to the desktop version of Steam can simultaneously ship on Steam Deck with minimal effort.
As for stuff that’s visible to users, though, the entire application’s look has been overhauled and modernized. In most cases, things are more or less where they used to be in the interface—they just look a little different, with new fonts, colors, sizes, and so on.
That said, the in-game overlay has received a more significant overhaul, as did notifications.
Steam users have access to more customizations about how and when notifications are displayed, and the notifications panel displays only new notifications, with a “view all” button for digging into older ones.
In general, the overlay has more information about the game you’re playing, from achievement progress to playing time and beyond. Valve has made big changes to the controller configurator from the Steam Deck, which is now part of the overlay whenever a game is connected.
The overlay is also home to arguably the most substantial user-facing feature: the ability to take notes inside the Steam overlay while playing a game. The notes are associated with that game, you can write multiple notes per game, and they support rich text formatting.
It doesn’t stop there. You can now pin individual windows from Steam’s overlay so they appear on top of your game even when the overlay is closed, and you can adjust the transparency of these windows to your preference. This works not just for notes but also for achievements, the web browser, guides, and discussions.
All of that applies to the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of Steam. On top of that, Steam now supports hardware acceleration on macOS and Linux. That means these versions have achieved parity with Windows for the first time.
If you’ve ever used Steam on Mac or Linux before, you know it has long felt both sluggish and sloppy. That’s not the case anymore. It’s a night-and-day improvement on those platforms.
These changes rolled out this week and should be available to all users by now.
Listing image by Valve
