After weeks of testing, Valve has officially rolled out a major new update steam Desktop client. It brings the look more in line with Steam Deck’s UI, and updates the big picture mode to follow the same aesthetic.
Looks aren’t everything though, as the new client brings a ton of new features, most of which are aimed at changing the in-game overlay.
The in-game overlay (Shift+Tab) looks better now, but it also offers a ton of useful new functionality. The bottom toolbar now effectively acts as a mini-Steam interface, giving you quick access to friends, achievements, guides, discussions, browsing the web, and more, right from within the game.
You can customize what is displayed by default, and the settings will be saved between games. A big new feature in the updated overlay is the ability to take notes. Notes feature supports rich text, images, and can store multiple notes per game. Notes are saved in the cloud and can be accessed on other platforms, but the feature also works offline.
Notes can also be edited outside of the overlay. Even more impressive, you can pin notes to windows. This allows pinned items to appear after you close the overlay, and you can adjust the size and opacity to your liking.
Pinning also works with some other items on the toolbar, such as discussions, achievements, and even guides – so you can follow a guide without constantly bringing up the overlay to read it. In fact, it also works in web browsers, so you can even watch videos completely embedded in the background.
As Valve noted in the announcement, a lot of work has gone into this that will pay off in the future. Both Steam for desktop (including Big Picture) and Steam Deck now run on a unified codebase. This allows developers to implement features for all three much more quickly, not to mention the appearance and feature parity that exists now.
Notifications are another area that has been significantly improved. The icon turns green when the really relevant notifications pop up, and you can now see a more detailed view of the history. You can also now control which notifications you see and where you see them.
Updates should automatically download for everyone, but you can force a download by manually checking for updates via the Steam menu > Check for Updates.