Steam has a new feature in beta aimed at helping completionists feel like they’ve got a bit more of a handle on their never-ending quests to 100% games whose trophy lists keep on growing and evolving. Steam achievements can now be grouped into sets determined by the developers, creating a means of separating off the likes of DLC trophies from the base game’s to-do list, thereby making it clearer what you’ve done so far and where you might want to focus next.
“Games today live longer than ever, continuing to receive updates through new DLC, expansions, and seasons,” Valve put it in their announcement post. “But 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.”
As such, developers can use these sets to group their game’s achievements into specific collections within the overall total, each of which has its own progress tracking bar. For example, they might choose to split off single player achievements from multiplayer ones, making it easier to tell if you’ve mastered solo play or gotten all of your plaudits with mates. Perhaps they’ll prefer to spilt it so there’s one set for the base game, then individual sets for each DLC added or class on offer.
Games with rolling seasons can also work in archivable temporary sets that will only show up as earnable when that particular bit of content or holiday is running, thereby eliminating any risk of you having one hidden trophy left to go that’s actually no longer grabbable because it’s based on a bit of the game that’s long gone.
Out of the gate, the list of games that support these achievement sets is as follows:
- Against the Storm
- Age of Wonders 4
- American Truck Simulator
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4
- Crusader Kings 3
- Dredge
- Euro Truck Simulator 2
- Forza Horizon 5
- Flock Around
- He is Coming
- Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Portal 2
- PowerWash Simulator
- PowerWash Simulator 2
- Team Fortress 2
- Victoria 3
As part of this update, Valve are also beta testing an overhauled achievements page. “The new page gives you a summary of your overall progress, progress in each achievement set, and details on individual achievements,” they wrote. “Global Stats, or the per-achievement completion rates, are now available as a toggle here rather than on a separate page. Search has also been expanded with filters for specific achievement sets and for locked or unlocked achievements. Plus, there’s a little extra joy when you complete all your achievement sets.” You can also compare your totals with up to three mates.
To give the new sets a whirl or chuck out the overhauled page, you’ll need to opt into the Steam Client Beta. Instructions on how to do so can be found here.