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Valve has announced a new version of Steam which is immediately available to all users of the service in a public, opt-in beta. The new client has been launched to accommodate the service’s rapid growth – there are now over 25 million users and over 1000 games.
If users already have Steam installed on their computer they can take part in the beta by clicking through this link and then selecting “UI Update” under Beta Participation. Those who currently don’t have Steam installed can download it here.
If you just want to take a look at the new Steam client you can do so here.
With the new Steam release, users will be able to see which games their friends have purchased directly within the Steam storefront. The new client also introduces library customisation tools to help gamers sort, group, and find games in libraries which for some hardcore players contain hundreds of titles. A new achievement tracking system has also been included.
“We made hundreds of changes to the Steam client as a result of customer feedback on the interface, performance, and functionality,” said John Cook, Director of Steam Development at Valve. “For example, we swapped out the Internet Explorer rendering engine with WebKit, which gives us a bunch of size, stability and performance benefits. This release of Steam leaves us well prepared for another year of strong growth.”
Major features:
– Complete overhaul of Steam client UI design to improve discoverability of features and to better expose all the information related to games in your library
– Complete overhaul of in-game overlay UI design to create a richer in-game experience exposing context sensitive information related to the game you are currently playing
– New game details view, presenting a detailed view of all the information for a single game in your library
– New grid view, presenting a graphical view of your game library
– New news page in the store/client/overlay which aggregates from Valve related news sites, official community groups, and third-party gaming news feeds
– New downloads view in the client, making it easier to track your progress downloading new games or game updates
– New Steam store design, including more integrated community features, improved recommendations, and improved video and screenshots viewing (and much more!)
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