Valve is beta testing a dramatic new look
Valve has made it that much easier for me to see exactly how many games I’ve left untouched and unloved in my aging Steam library. With today’s beta, Steam users can now opt-in to play around with the platform’s new and arguably improved library interface. It’s a dramatic before-and-after.
My immediate reaction after installation? An audible “whoa.” I like it – at least so far.
The intention behind this redesign is to make it “quick and easy to explore, sort, hide, and feature your games,” and based on my first impressions, that’s accurate. At a glance, I can see new updates/events for games I own, jump back into my recent titles in a more visually-pleasing manner, filter my collection based on genre or “play state” (e.g., “unplayed”), and even create dynamic game groupings.
If you find the new look to be a bit on the big side – some of the icons are admittedly pushing it in terms of screen real estate – then you may want to customize your settings. To do so, hop into View > Settings > Library. You can tweak the size of UI elements. There’s also low-bandwidth mode (to stop auto-loading community content) and low-performance mode (to tone down the visual flair).
If you’re looking for a way to trim your text-based list of games down to just your currently installed titles, look for an innocuous “play” icon above the list and click that sucker. Any other tips? Share ’em!
The all-new Steam library [Steam]
