Steam update takes notes from PlayStation as massive feature overhaul announced
Steam has announced a massive overhaul of the achievement system, bringing it closer to the way PlayStation tracks completed trophies.
Achievements as a system have been around for over two decades, originally introduced by Microsoft in 2005 as an additional digital reward for completing various feats inside Xbox games.
In the years since, they have spread outside of Xbox, with Steam, PlayStation, and Epic Games being some of the other platforms to host a similar achievement system.
Valve's latest Steam Client Beta update is now bringing an overhaul to the way achievements are tracked, its first major overhaul of the system since it was originally introduced in 2007.
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Now renamed to Achievement Sets, Steam Achievements are now being sorted into different groups at the developer's discretion, with different achievements being grouped by DLC, game type, or season.
What this basically means is that if you buy the standard version of a game without any DLC, completing all the achievements for the base game will reward you with a completed set that you can show off on your profile, even if the DLC cheevs are uncompleted.
This is similar to the way PlayStation groups trophies, with trophy sets often separated by DLC or expansion. Games that are released as collections (such as Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection or Tomb Raider I-III Remastered) are also separated into lists. In some rare cases, multiplayer trophies are even given their own set so as not to interfere with trophy hunters going after that elusive Platinum.
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Valve explains the change by saying: "Achievements added with new game content can be hard to discover and can accidentally break the completion status of players who have already finished the game.
We have designed Achievement Sets to help address these types of issues."
The new achievement system has now entered beta, which you can access by opting into the Steam Client beta on any version of Steam. The beta allows developers to group achievements into collections, with different sets corresponding to a collection of achievements specified by the developer.
Aside from splitting up DLC, Valve uses "one game grouping its achievements into single-player and multiplayer sets, or another into 8 class-based sets" as potential examples of how the new system can be utilised by developers.
In games which support sets, you'll still unlock achievements as usual, but browsing what you've unlocked afterwards will break down the list of achievements into the sets created by developers. This makes it easy to see what you've completed so far, as well as finding where you can unlock the achievements you're still yet to clear.
I'll use my own completion of Left 4 Dead 2 as an example. Take note of the fact that achievements have been grouped by game mode, with separate sets for Infected, Versus, and Survival. Scrolling down, you can filter by individual sets to see that each one has its own progress bar.
Most importantly though, for ongoing games with new DLC, expansions, or seasons, developers can add new achievements to their games without removing the completion status for those who managed to complete every achievement prior to this.
Another feature added with the update includes 'seasonal achievements', which are achievements players can earn during time-limited events. These achievements only appear for the duration of the time-limited event, and are then archived once the event ends. Players who unlocked the achievements will be able to see them, but anything that was still locked will remain hidden and don't affect the completion status of any other set.
Right now, only a handful of titles are supported. It'll require developers to opt-in to the feature for older games to receive these Achievement Sets, something that is unlikely to hit every game in your Steam library.
As for when it's expected to leave beta, that much is unknown at the moment, as Valve has not confirmed when this will hit the main release branch.