Steam Achievements Get Major Overhaul: Separate DLC Sets & Friend Comparisons

Ever been annoyed when a game's DLC drops your perfect 100% completion down a notch? Valve feels your pain. A new Steam client beta update is shaking up how achievements work, and it's bringing some much-needed changes for completionists.

The biggest change? Developers can now create custom achievement sets for their games. That means you might see separate sets for things like mastering a specific character class or finishing a singleplayer campaign. More importantly, sets now distinguish base game achievements from DLC and seasonal ones. So if you've unlocked everything in the base game, you'll keep that shiny 100% even if new DLC adds more achievements. No more forced completionism if you don't plan on playing the extra content.

Seasonal achievements get the same treatment. Valve's example is a "Halloween Event Achievements" set that's only valid for a certain period and doesn't affect your base game stats. That's great news if you have a completionist itch but want to skip a season—your overall completion won't take a hit.

The achievements page itself has also been refreshed. Most of the info you need is now on a single page: your overall progress and your progress toward individual achievements. And here's a feature many have been waiting for: you can now directly compare achievements with up to three friends at once. PlayStation has had this for a while, so it's nice to see Valve catch up.

Of course, not every game supports the new system yet, but a bunch already do. The list includes 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, and Victoria 3.

The feature is still in beta, but you can sign up for the Steam Client Beta to try it now. If you'd rather wait, betas typically last around a month, as we saw with Steam's new screensaver feature. So keep an eye out for the full rollout.

What do you think of these changes? Will you be diving into the beta to test them out?