Steam's grip on the PC gaming market is undeniable - in fact, 72% of developers think it has a functional monopoly. As Larian publishing director Michael Douse put it, "It's almost as if it isn't providing a shit service". The Epic Games Store, the Xbox App, Ubisoft Connect, the EA App (why does every publisher have an app?), none of these platforms come anywhere close to matching Steam's generally stellar experience.
That being said, a lack of real competition is the root of complacency, and I for one would like to see Steam continue to improve, especially as it invades the living room with its second and much more promising attempt at the Steam Machine.
More detailed options for Steam reviews
Scott Tanner, Senior Video Producer: It’s silly that Steam reviews are distilled into a binary thumbs-up/thumbs-down choice. There are plenty of games I would recommend with major caveats, or ones I’d warn people of that still have redeeming qualities. And that’s without the ones that leave me totally ambivalent. A five-star rating system, or optional scores for specific attributes like graphics, gameplay, and accessibility, would be hugely beneficial for the consumer.
I’m not alone in wanting this either. We interviewed Felipe Falanghe, one of Kerbal Space Program’s devs last year at GDC and he advocated for exactly the same thing. “For me, that’s my primary line of feedback to know what people think about the game,” he said, “and it just kind of sucks that the good and bad binary choice that we get have the same weight if you absolutely hate the game and think it’s the worst thing ever, or if you just think it’s not all the way there yet. Like, that’s the same button.”
Rory Norris, Guides Writer: One of the things that bugs me to no end about Steam reviews is that you can't see players' system specs, so I'd also like to see this information added to the store page. Stuff like graphics card, CPU, and RAM could be optionally attached to user's reviews, so it's no extra work for players. I say optionally because some players might not want to include their specs, and that's fine.
Nevertheless, if I see a review that mentions performance, whether positive or negative, I immediately want to know if I can expect similar results on my own machine. Unless the user handily lists their device's specs of their own volition in the review itself (most don't), you've got little context. After all, system requirements given by developers aren't always spot on, so conveniently attaching this data in reviews would save me a lot of heartache and/or research.
Hell, it could potentially even help developers avoid some unnecessary negative scores where performance woes are unjust, if the Steam reviewer in question is severely under the system requirements.
Store page upgrades
Kara Phillips, Evergreen Writer: I'm sick to death of getting an email every single time a game from my wishlist goes on sale, but I do find myself curious as to how much the price of certain games has varied across different events.
Adding something like a price tracker (akin to SteamDB's) could allow users to be far more informed when buying. Everyone wants to save some pennies when they can, and this would certainly make it easier.
Rory Norris, Guides Writer: Speaking of saving you clicks from visiting out-of-Steam resources like SteamDB, there's another store feature I'd like to see 'borrowed', and it's from the Xbox PC App of all places.
I hate the Xbox App, especially now that it's decided to clog up my library with everything from every other platform I have against my will. I literally only use it for a handful of Game Pass games, Microsoft, I'm not playing my Steam games on your clunky platform even if you take them hostage.
With that being said, this shoddy storefront does have one thing up its sleeve: HowLongToBeat integration. Basically, it uses HowLongToBeat's data to tell you…how long it takes to beat key playstyles in games, like b-lining the main story, an average playthrough, and a completionist run.
I don't normally pay too much attention to how long a game is (any Assassin's Creed will show you size doesn't equal value), but it's helpful to have an idea of whether the game you're contemplating is a 100-hour epic or a short but sweet five hours.
A currently playing section in the library
Lauren Morton, Lead SEO Editor: I already wrote about how I think that book tracking apps should learn from Steam but maybe Steam could learn just a little bit from the Goodreads and Storygraphs of my life too. What they've got that we don't is a little section at the top of your dashboard to track what you're currently reading and your current completion progress.
My time with a game isn't always as linear as reading a book front to back, sure. I mean, am I ever not currently playing Stardew Valley? I already sort of mimic this by keeping my "recent games" shelf at the top so I can quickly access whatever I put down last. It would be cool to have a little "currently playing" toggle and dedicated shelf in the library to make it feel a little more special. Maybe it could show achievement percent completion and hours played so far or something. I want my Steam library to feel more like my own command center and less like just a big database.
Achievement categories for streamlined 100%
Rory Norris, Guides Writer: While I'm a completionist in the sense that I like to collect every item and do every activity in a game, I've never been too bothered about ticking off all the achievements. Why? Because it's a hell of a lot of effort that I can't be arsed to go through, so I feel the plight of those who are up to the challenge.
Steam already has a fairly robust achievement system—I love that it shows you the percentage of players that have completed any given challenge—but it's a bit of a mess.
Unfortunately, base game and DLC achievements are currently clumped together on Steam, so it's impossible to 100% certain titles if they have expansion challenges. For example, if you want to 100% The Witcher 3 today, you need to complete the achievements for the base game and its two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. If you don't own expansion content for any given game, then you're out of luck.
One thing PlayStation does very well is creating sub-sections for later content additions, so you can 100% the base game and expansions separately. Anything to make the arduous task any easier is a plus in my book.
A better way to scoop up unowned DLC
Jake Tucker, Editorial Director, PC Gaming Show: Often when I come back to a game after a long time away, I'll duck into the store page to see if there's any good DLC. Sadly this often means navigating nonsense cosmetic DLCs or working out what I already own from the myriad of bundles first. Steam adding a way for me to grab the big DLCs easily would mean I could spend less time buying and more time playing.
Better mod support
Joshua Wolens, News Writer: Back when Steam Workshop was introduced, sometime just after the dinosaurs went extinct, I had incredible visions of the bright future it promised.
No longer would any install of a Bethesda game be followed, inevitably, by several hours of modding. No longer would I have to keep tabs on 10,000 different mods on 1,000 different sites for 100 different games to see when they got vital updates, or if they got supplanted by a new, better project. Steam was gonna handle it all for me, slotting everything into place at the same time as it downloaded everything else, and keeping it all spick and span in the background.
Well, it didn't work like that. The Workshop is, you know, fine, but even the recent(ish) addition of load orders didn't really bring it up to pace with features offered by mod organisers like, uh, Mod Organizer. Nor is it as widely adopted as I'd like—which is admittedly more on devs and publishers than Valve.
I'd love to see the Workshop get some love in 2026, and particularly, I'd love to see it grafted onto more old games. If I could download New Vegas and have it automatically install the latest and greatest fan patches? I'd be a happy man.
More wishlist controls
Rory Norris, Guides Writer: Ahh, your Steam wishlist. In the early days of your account, I'm sure you actually used this as a shopping list for all the games you were planning on getting when they were released or on sale.
After years of adding games to a single list and little in the way of organising it, my wishlist is now a dumping ground that doesn't serve its purpose. Sure, I could go through the 414 games (rather small compared to most users, I reckon), vetting them one by one, but I'm not going to—and no, you wouldn't do that either.
Taking a page out of Steam's own excellent game library organisation, it's high time we were able to create separate collections or even multiple wishlists to house specific types of games. Perhaps I want a wishlist dedicated to games I'm actually going to buy when I can afford to, and another for games that I just think look neat but probably won't ever get around to.
SteamOS for every PC
Wes Fenlon, Senior Editor: Enough talk about putting things in Steam. Let's talk about putting Steam on things. Since the arrival of the Steam Deck, we've been eagerly awaiting the day Valve releases SteamOS as a full-on Linux distro that any PC gamer can install on their desktop. And, well, we're still waiting.
SteamOS has improved enormously over the last couple of years and added support for thousands more games, but progress on the hardware and driver front has been slower. Right now it's just the Steam Deck and the Legion Go, with the ROG Ally and "other AMD-powered handhelds" listed as having beta support.
But with the desktop (or living room) Steam Machine arriving this year, I want to see SteamOS available for computers full-stop, too. That means driver support for Nvidia graphics cards and Intel CPUs and other varied hardware, a smooth installation process, etc. Right now, PC gamers who want to ditch Windows are largely installing Bazzite in lieu of SteamOS; Bazzite is great, and as PC Gamer's Joshua Wolens has already passionately argued, you shouldn't be afraid to install it on your PC right now. But a lot of people will still be afraid to venture off into community-led Linux land. "Just install SteamOS" is the least scary I can imagine Linux sounding to them as a Windows alternative.
SteamOS is really good now—time to finish the job Gabe Newell started 14 years ago.
Gabe yacht tracker
Tyler Wilde, US EIC: If PC gaming is going to have an ultra-rich baron of the deep seas, I think we should get frequent updates on what he's finding down there.
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