Steam Achievement Sets enter client beta for players and developers

Valve has started a beta for Achievement Sets, a Steam feature meant to make long-running games easier to track as DLC, expansions and seasons keep adding unlocks. According to the Steam News announcement, players can try the work in the current Steam Client beta, and developers can already ship sets in supported titles.

What Achievement Sets do

Studios decide how many sets a game needs and what each set covers. Valve’s examples include splitting single-player from multiplayer, or organizing unlocks by class. Unlocking still happens while you play; the change is in how Steam presents the list afterward, breaking it into those developer-made collections so related goals sit together.

Each set has its own progress meter. Finishing every unlock in a set marks the moment and places a set complete trophy on the profile. If the developer later adds more unlocks to that same set, prior completion stays intact.

Valve distinguishes two kinds of sets:

• Base game sets — unlocks available to anyone who owns the game. Those meters and trophies appear in blue on the achievements page.
• DLC sets — unlocks that require purchased add-on content. Those stay out of overall game progress until the player has access; once they do, progress and trophies show in purple. The new page still lets anyone browse what DLC has added.

Seasonal unlocks and archiving

Developers can archive a single achievement or an entire set. Valve points to seasonal games and limited holiday unlocks as uses for that temporary window. Players who already unlocked an archived item keep it on their profile; people who missed it will not see it there, and it will not block progress on a set or the game. Valve says anything that can no longer be unlocked should be archived.

The updated achievements page

An updated achievements view is reachable from the web Games List and from Library entries. It summarizes overall progress, set progress and per-achievement detail. Global Stats (completion rates) sit behind a toggle on the same page instead of a separate one. Search can filter by set and by locked or unlocked status.

Friend comparison covers up to three friends, including rare unlocks, finished sets and DLC-set progress. Steam also shows a completion total based on unlocks each person can actually earn — which can differ when friends own different add-ons or when some unlocks are time-limited or archived.

Valve says achievement and set progress also surface in more places across Steam, including Recently Played on the profile, the Games List and the Library. Related UI notes in the same post: the former Perfect Games tab is now Completed (games plus completed sets); the Completionist Showcase can include games with finished sets; Family Sharing playtime shows in the Games List and counts for friend comparison; Store and Library pages can indicate that a title has sets.

Games already using sets

Valve’s post names these early adopters (each listed separately in the announcement):

• Against the Storm
• Age of Wonders 4
• American Truck Simulator
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4
• Crusader Kings III
• 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

What we don’t know yet

Valve’s post frames Achievement Sets as a beta for players and developers, without a general-availability timeline or a schedule for how quickly other games will join the early supporting list above.