Today's Steam update brings big updates to the various tag, genre, category, and theme browsing pages across the Steam store. Previously released as a Steam Labs experiment, these new store hubs have been tested and iterated upon with player feedback over the past few months. In fact, you've probably already seen these new hubs in action, as we've made use of them during the Summer Sale or various official themed sales.

As the catalog of titles available on Steam continues to grow, we're working to make it easier for you to find your next favorite game. This update improving the ways you can browse genres, tags, or themes, allowing you to dive deep into each area and narrow down to exactly what you're looking for.

Here's a look at what's new:

These new pages now make it easy to explore all kinds of different niches within Steam. Whether you are looking for a general category like "Multiplayer", a theme like "Space" or a very specific tag like "Action Roguelike", these new hubs let you explore deep into that category. For many categories, we've hand-built an organization to surface the relevant sub-categories within. For example, the RPG store hub is organized into Action RPGs, Adventure RPGs, JRPGs, and more, so you can drill down to exactly the kind of game you are looking for.



The contents of each hub is personalized based on your play history, network of friends, followed developers, and what you have on your wishlist.

The carousel at the top of the page will show you games recommended for you, along with helpful metadata about why that game might be relevant for you.



Our broadest hubs offer tabs to quickly drill down by logical themes and sub-genres. Each one is hand-built to showcase the most logical sub-categories for each hub. For example, you can find your way to just the Open World RPGs and Controller-Friendly Casual Games. Or some hubs are broken down by subgenre, as on this Real-time tab of our Strategy hub and this Arcade section of the Sports & Racing hub.

Each hub will recommend games based on what you've been playing and the developers you follow on Steam. Of course if you are looking at a category of games that you've never played before, Steam may not be able to generate many useful recommendations for you and will hide those sections.



These hubs each contain a powerful list view that lets you use the filter controls to narrow down to exactly the segment of games you are looking for. We call this feature 'Faceted Browsing' and it also began life as a Steam Labs experiment.



Every section of the Steam store is now lit up with current events from related titles. Catch a seasonal event, big update, or other interesting news directly from the developers.



The new hubs end with a dedicated section showcasing upcoming releases. Pre-purchase or wishlist anticipated titles to be notified as soon as they're released.


Click on an individual tag from any game's store page and you'll find the hub for that tag. You can also easily discover the most popular hubs, or the hubs recommended for you right from the Steam store homepage.

We've also added a new way to jump right into one of your favorite categories right from this colorful carousel on the Steam homepage. This section will recommend categories based on the games you've recently been playing so you can explore more similar games. Or you can always scroll to find some other categories that you maybe haven't played in a while.



You can access the most popular destinations by hitting the "Categories" drop-down at the top of the Steam store.



Launched in July 2019, Steam Labs is a place where experimental new features can be introduced early in development, tested, and developed in conjunction with the community. For more information, please visit https://store.steampowered.com/labs/

Returning to our monthly release series, we're happy to announce Steam's Top Releases for July. As always, we look at every release for the month, highlighting the Top 20 games and Top 5 DLC releases based on the first two weeks of revenue. We also highlight the top 5 free-to-play games, ranked by the number of unique players they acquired after launch.

The Top Releases of July 2022

Players connect to Steam from nearly every time zone and country imaginable, so it's no surprise that Top Releases also come from development studios around the world. This developer diversity was on full display in July, as teams based in 13 different countries earned spots on the Top Release list. Studios from Japan produced more than a quarter of the games this month, with KOEI TECMO and Bandai Namco Entertainment releasing a pair of Top Releases each. Combining a rich game development history with some of the industry's most recognizable franchises, Japanese studios regularly make Top Release appearances. But we were also thrilled this month to see developers from less-populated regions debuting a Top Release for the first time in 2022. With releases from Gummy Cat (Romania) and Ernestas Norvaišas (Lithuania), developers from 32 different countries have now created a Top Release on Steam in 2022.

July's Top Releases also include an abundance of simulation games. Between farming and colony sims to city building and management games, about half of the titles this month include one of the various sub-tags from the simulation genre. City builder fans need only decide which era they want to bring to life, with choices ranging from the prehistoric Sapiens, to the medieval Clanfolk, all the way up to the industrial Sweet Transit. July's life-sims offer players relaxing yet fantastic slices of day-to-day life, whether tending your giant wombats in the wild Australian outback of Dinkum or helping Hank the Bear run his business in Bear and Breakfast - did we mention both of these games also feature the cute tag. Along with all of these, PowerWash Simulator really splashed its way on the charts in July. Sprayers--err, we mean, players-- are really soaking up the relaxation with Futurlab’s zen-like hit. 

As with previous months, we'd also like to congratulate the teams that are releasing their first Steam game. Some of these teams have been making games for a while on other platforms, while others are making their very first commercial game. A big welcome and congrats go out to these development teams on their successful Steam debuts.

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If you'd like to check out previous months, here are more Top Release lists:

• January 2022
  
• February 2022
  
• March 2022
  
• April 2022
  
• May 2022
  
• June 2022

Today we’re starting a limited beta of the updated Steam Mobile App. We’ve rebuilt the app on a new framework and modernized the design. (2015 called and wanted their app back.) You’ll still be able to browse the store, get Steam Guard codes, and confirm trades, but now the app comes with QR code sign in, smarter notifications, an improved Library, and multi account support.

Why are you doing a beta? The sooner we get your feedback on a product, the better. So when we’re far enough along, we ask invested Steam users to try something out and provide feedback. This helps us test our assumptions, learn what you like and don’t like, and find things that need to be fixed. This is especially important when the app can be used on so many different phones and devices.

Who should join the beta? You should join the beta if you already use the Steam Mobile App and you’re willing to provide your feedback on the update. Join this Steam group for instructions on how to install the update and how to tell us what you think. Per Apple guidelines: iOS participants will be limited to 10,000 and will need to install TestFlight.

What if I can’t join the beta? If the beta slots are full, you can still join the group and chime in. We’d like to hear from you!

What’s coming next? We’ll continue adding people to the beta and improving features until we’re ready to push the update out to everyone.

Note: This update was re-released on August 30 with the following change: Reduced network usage at startup.
Note: This update was re-released on August 19 to fix an issue with Steam Chat window handling.

Steam Library

• Fixed library crash when opening certain game news items
  
• Fixed a library pause when a new screenshot is taken for a game with a large number of screenshots

Steam Cloud

• Fixed persistent “Steam Cloud out of date” message for some apps which do not have Steam Cloud fully enabled

Steam Input

• Improved support for the Nintendo Online classic controllers
  
• Added support for Nintendo Joy-Con controllers, both individually as a mini-gamepad and combined into pairs

Remote Play

• Fixed a rare freeze when using the on-screen keyboard in the controller overlay
  
• Fixed left and right thumbstick movement leaking through to the remote side when using a PS4 controller in the controller overlay

Stake out your territory, scavenge for food, and beat the elements* during Steam Survival Fest, live now and featuring discounts, demos, and upcoming releases for survival games of all kinds!

*”Elements” is, of course, the polite word for “holy crap there are a lot of things to survive in games,” from the typical environmental situations to supernatural beings, with a whole lot more in between. Can you survive everything the Steam Survival Fest games might throw at you? There's only one way to find out!

Steam Survival Fest runs August 1, 10:00 AM PDT (GMT-7) to August 8, 10:00 AM PDT (GMT-7). Check out the official Steam Survival Fest page now.