John Paul M. Joaquin Tech 06.15.2023 03:Jun AM EDT

Steam’s Latest Desktop Update Brings UI Improvements, Visuals

Valve's Steam Client now has a new look.

The popular digital video game distribution and developing company recently released an update to its Steam Desktop client that brought new features, improvements to its visuals, and a new framework to gamers using its platform.

Valve's Steam update is now available for PC gamers to download; it should be included in their download list immediately.

Steam Desktop Client Update Details

Valve mentioned in its announcement that its latest Steam desktop update contains features previously in beta tested and fine-tuned in the beta branch, though many of the changes the update came with aren't immediately invisible.

One of these features is a new notifications system, which Valve claims to be more useful than it was. The green bell only lights up when a notification is "truly something new" for a player. The tray view is also limited to new notifications; Valve added a historical view that lists all past and present notifications chronologically through a "View All" page.

Steam users can now control the notifications they see through its new notifications-specific settings, allowing them to see the notifications they want and where they can see them on screen.

The update also comes with a redesigned in-game overlay (accessible via Shift+Tab while in-game) that adds more utility and customizability. The overlay now has a toolbar that gives players access to anything they may need while in-game, such as friends chat, achievements progress, guides, a browser, and more.

More importantly, Valve has officially added a Notes feature to Steam's Desktop client, allowing players to write down notes about the game they're playing at the time. Interestingly, the feature comes with rich text formatting, the ability to paste images, and the ability to make multiple notes per game, even in offline mode.

These notes are saved per game and are synced across to any other PC or Steam Deck a player is logged into.

Last but not least is the ability to pin windows from the overlay, allowing them to appear on top of the game while in-game, allowing you to view notes even while gaming - an important feature for detail-heavy games such as Resident Evil, Heavy Rain, and LA Noire.

Players can adjust the window's opacity to prevent them from interfering with the game's display; only the contents of the window will be pinned, excluding the title bar and other extraneous UI.

Steam Desktop Client Visual Improvements

Aside from these features, Valve also provided targeted visual and usability improvements across Steam and has updated the app's dialogs, menus, fonts, and colors. As such, the mean Steam header and footer, Settings, and Screenshot Manager, now have a better-looking UI, among others.

Many of these new features and visual improvements will also be available on Steam Deck, Big Picture, and mobile because of the shared codebase and a new framework, such as Notes in Steam's overlay.