Steam Achievement Sets Put Completion Back on Developers

Valve opened Steam Achievement Sets in the Steam Client Beta on October 15, 2026. Developers can group a game’s trophies so a later DLC drop no longer wipes a finished 100% record.

The split only appears in games whose studios turn it on. Valve put that switch in Steamworks, and it needs no game patch.

Valve Left This Decision With Developers

Steam still unlocks trophies the same way in play. The change is how those trophies are filed, counted, and shown after the fact. Valve said long-running games keep adding DLC, expansions, and seasons, and that new achievements can be hard to find and can break the completion status of players who already finished the game.

Games today live longer than ever, continuing to receive updates through new DLC, expansions, and seasons. 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.

Valve, Steam Achievement Sets Now in Beta

The partner post that went out the same day is blunter about who does the work. Valve told studios they can organize existing trophies into sets in a few minutes, or archive ones that can no longer be earned, including on games that already shipped.

You do not need a build. You do not need a Steamworks SDK bump. Existing API names and unlock calls keep working. Sets are configured entirely in Steamworks, from Edit Steamworks Settings, then Stats and Achievements, then Achievements.

That is the part the player-facing recap skips. The old single list is still the default. Every trophy sits in the base game set until someone on the team moves it. A studio that never opens the new editor leaves DLC mixed into the same 100% bar it has used for years.

Steamworks also rebuilt the editor around that job. Bulk import and export handle definitions, set assignments, icons, and text through CSV and image files. Bulk Move shifts many trophies between sets at once. Upload a color icon and the tools can generate a grayscale locked version. Missing localizations get flagged. Developer-only sets stay visible to the team, which lets a studio test names, icons, and unlocks before players see them. DLC sets can sit in that hidden state until the pack is live, so the store page does not leak the extra list early.

How Achievement Sets Split Base Game From DLC

Valve describes two set types. Base Game sets hold trophies any player of the game can earn. Those bars and trophies show blue. DLC sets hold trophies that need purchased content. Those show purple once you have the pack.

DLC trophies stay out of overall game progress until you have access to that content. Skip the expansion and the base 100% can hold. Buy it, and those purple items can join the overall count, with their own bar beside the blue one. Curious players can still browse every set on the new achievements page, including DLC they have not bought.

HOW SETS COUNT

Each set has its own progress bar. Finish every trophy in a set and Steam adds a “set complete” trophy to the profile. If the studio later adds more trophies to that same set, the completion mark stays. New content can get a new set instead, so returning players see the extra work without losing the old finish.

Valve’s own examples are practical rather than decorative. One game might split single-player from multiplayer. Another might run eight class-based sets. A third might attach a set to DLC ownership so the extra list only appears for people who can actually play that pack. The partner guide is explicit that a DLC set does not count toward completion of the base game or any other set.

Caps sit in the same guide. An app can hold 5,000 achievements, or 100 if it has not been vetted yet. Archived trophies still count against that cap. Sets per app top out at 40, including the base game set. Deleting a trophy removes it for everyone, including people who already unlocked it, so the editor recommends archive once players have earned it.

Seventeen Games Already Carry Sets

Valve says a growing group of games has added support. The launch list is 17 titles. Three of them are Valve’s own: Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2.

The rest of the first wave is heavy on games that already grow their lists after launch. Truck simulators, live Forza seasons, Call of Duty, PowerWash packs, and long grand-strategy catalogs are exactly the kind of product that used to turn a finished 100% into a moving target.

THE LAUNCH LIST

• Valve: Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2.
• DLC-heavy catalogs: American Truck Simulator, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Forza Horizon 5, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, PowerWash Simulator, and PowerWash Simulator 2.
• Long campaigns and extras: Against the Storm, Age of Wonders 4, Crusader Kings III, Victoria 3, DREDGE, Flock Around, He is Coming, and LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.

Store and Library pages will mark when a game has sets. If a title is not on this list, the old single tally still includes every DLC trophy. Completionists who care about a clean 100% have to check the game, not just the client.

PlayStation has offered separate DLC trophy lists, and friend comparisons, for years. Steam’s version is optional per game, which is why the first 17 matter more than the client skin. They are proof some studios will split the pile. They are not a catalog-wide switch.

Dead Seasons Stop Blocking 100 Percent

The other hole in the old list was content that went away. Holiday events, retired modes, and dead multiplayer servers left trophies that nobody new could earn, which blocked a full clear for anyone who missed the window.

Studios can now archive a single trophy or a whole set. Valve’s suggested uses are season-based games and time-limited holiday achievements. The rule in the announcement is simple: if users can no longer unlock it, it should be archived.

WHAT ARCHIVE DOES

• Keepers: Players who already unlocked the trophy still see it on their profile.
• Missed it: Archived trophies do not show on the profiles of players who never earned them.
• Completion: They no longer block progress toward finishing a set or the game.
• Live ops: A Halloween or battle-pass set can exist for a while, then drop out of the required list without wiping people who cleared it.

That is a different fix from the DLC split, and it hits a different studio. Live games that rotate events have been the worst case for a frozen 100%. Archiving lets those teams keep seasonal bragging rights for people who were there, without turning last year’s event into a permanent lock for everyone else.

Used badly, archive is also a way to quietly retire a badly designed trophy. Used well, it is how a game with a battle pass stops punishing players who skip a season. Valve left that judgment with the same people who write the list.

Friend Comparisons Count Only What You Can Earn

The achievements page is rebuilt around sets. It is available from the Games List on the web and from games in the Steam Library. One screen now holds overall progress, progress in each set, and detail on individual trophies.

WHAT THE NEW PAGE ADDS

• Global Stats: Per-trophy completion rates sit behind a toggle on this page instead of a separate one.
• Search: Filters cover specific sets plus locked or unlocked trophies.
• Profile rollup: Completed sets show in Recently Played, the Games List, the Library, and related surfaces.
• Completed tab: The old Perfect Games tab is now called Completed, and it includes games with finished sets. Those sets can go on the Completionist Showcase.

Friend compare takes up to three friends at once. It can show rare trophies, finished sets, and DLC-set progress. Steam also shows a set count and a new total that is meant to be more accurate, because it is based on trophies each player can actually earn. That total can differ from friend to friend, depending on DLC owned and on what is time-limited or archived.

Family Sharing is folded into the same view. Games played through Family Sharing now appear in the Games List, and friends with playtime that way are eligible for comparison. The social piece is no longer limited to people who bought the same SKU.

None of that redraws a game that has not created sets. The prettier page still sits on top of one long list until a developer cuts it up.

The Steam Client Beta Is the Only Door for Now

Players who want sets now have to join the Steam Client Beta. Everyone else can wait for the stable client. Valve has not named a date for that move, and it said it will keep changing the feature during the test.

The steps come from Valve’s own Steam Client Beta help page. On desktop, with Steam running, open Steam, then Settings (Preferences on Mac), then the Interface tab, set Client Beta Participation to Steam Beta Update, and restart. On a Steam Deck, use Settings, System, Beta Participation, set System Update Channel to Beta, and restart. In Big Picture Mode, the same System menu exposes Steam Client Update Channel; pick Steam Beta Update and restart.

HOW TO JOIN THE BETA

1. Desktop: Steam, then Settings, then Interface, then Client Beta Participation, then Steam Beta Update, then Restart Now.
2. Steam Deck: Steam button, then Settings, then System, then Beta Participation, then System Update Channel set to Beta, then restart.
3. Big Picture Mode: Settings, then System, then Beta Participation, then Steam Client Update Channel set to Steam Beta Update, then restart.

The same Steam Client Beta Participation setting switches you back off. The test is the current client, not a separate app, so the rest of Steam comes along for the ride, including unrelated beta work that shipped on October 15.

Gameplay does not change. Valve wrote that you still unlock achievements by playing as usual. The new filing only shows up after that, and only in supported games, and only in this client until the stable build inherits it.

A Finished Record Still Needs a Studio to Flip It

Steam achievements go back to 2007, when Valve added them around The Orange Box and games such as Portal and Team Fortress 2. For most of that time the platform kept one list per app. Live games and DLC catalogs grew, and a finished 100% became a temporary state. The new tools end that design for studios that use them. They do not end it for the rest of the store.

The DLC split is the change that actually moves a completion record, and it exists only in games whose teams turn sets on. Valve removed the technical excuse. There is no patch queue, no SDK version gate, and no need to touch unlock code. A partner that leaves DLC in the base set is choosing a single bar that still drops when the next pack lands.

Some launch titles already had a reason to split. Valve’s own class shooters and co-op campaigns fit the eight-set and mode-set examples. Truck sims and Forza-style seasons fit the DLC and archive examples. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 sitting on the same list says at least one huge extra-content machine is willing to file packs separately. Most Steam games are not on that list yet.

Until a studio opens the new editor and moves its extra trophies out of the base set, the old tally still stands. Valve has not said when Achievement Sets leave beta. The player setting is optional. The developer setting is optional too, and that is the one that decides whether a 100% record survives the next DLC.