Steam Achievements are getting a big overhaul, with separate collections for DLC and Season Passes, and an easy way to compare with friends.

It's in beta right now, but it's likely to be widely released in a month or so.

When you make a purchase through links on our site, we may receive an affiliate commission. Here's how it works.

Valve has rolled out a new update to its Steam beta client that brings big changes to how achievements work and how they're displayed. Developers can now create a set of customized achievements for their game, such as mastering a specific character class or completing a single-player campaign. Collections also distinguish base game achievements from individual DLCs and seasonal collections.

Previously if you opened all achievements in a game you would see a neat 'n' and 100% in your achievements list. But if that game got DLC with new achievements, 100% would be reduced accordingly. I can understand why achievement heads are annoyed by this: what if you don't plan on playing the DLC, but want to keep 100% completion rights? This update fixes it, assuming developers are using it.

It's a similar situation for Seasonal Achievements, which I can see working well with Battle Passes. An example that Valve uses is a collection called "Halloween Event Achievements" that are valid for a certain period of time and do not affect the number of achievements in the base game. In other words: if you have the full itch but skip a season, it won't affect your base game stats.

All of these changes have resulted in a refresh of the Achievements screen. Most of the achievements information is now displayed on one screen: your progress towards overall completion, and your progress towards unlocking individual achievements.

I especially like that you can now directly compare achievements with up to three friends at once, which is shown at the bottom of the image above. This feature has been around for a while on PlayStation consoles, and as such there are separate collections for DLC achievements. It's good that Valve has come to this conclusion.

The latest Steam beta version brings Big Art to the big picture mode and Steam Deck, as well as customizable screensavers

Steam Weekly Review: Here Are 32 Steam Games Brave Enough To Release On GTA 6 Day

Valve is putting some elbow grease into Steam Remote Play—maybe one day you won't need to install extra tools to get the best gaming experience at home.

Naturally, not all games on Steam have implemented this new system yet, but the following games have:

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

Stay up to date with the most important stories and best deals, as selected by the PC Gamer team.

Contact me for news and offers from other upcoming brands Receive emails from us from our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information, you agree to our terms and conditions and privacy policy and you are 16 years or older.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years of experience covering the gaming industry, Oster's work has appeared in GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, Sydney Morning Herald and more. Special interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games, and FPS. He thinks Metallica and Lou Reed's Lulu is an all-time classic that will one day be reevaluated by critics.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please log out and back in, then you will be prompted to enter your display name.

Now that Valve has fixed LAN game streaming on Steam, you won't have to worry about limited bandwidth or data anymore.

Steam's big new art mode is a lovely visual upgrade to my living room setup

Steam now has a crazy logo screensaver and I'm pretty sure it doesn't quite reach the corners

'My idea of Netflix doesn't work for games': Mod Garry's successor is getting 'extensive changes'

Epic says the new "webcoded" Epic Games Store launcher is faster than Steam

After a record-breaking September, it's safe to say that Steam's annual revenue will surpass $20 billion for the first time.

9 new games of 2026 will be sold in the Steam Fall Sale

Less than 2 weeks after announcing RuneScape Reignited, Jagex is calling it quits.

Street Fighter Review Summary: Sorry, folks, but it looks like a mess

World of Warcraft: Forever developers say that gear upgrades will remain relevant "for a long, long time": "It's very much our intention to try not to invalidate old content as much as we can."

Control Resonant became Remedy's best-selling game by selling 1 million copies in 3 weeks.

The AI bubble may not have burst yet, but $1 trillion worth of air appears to have been deflated.