The Steam Library beta is now available for anyone to access. To join, go to the beta participation tab in your Steam preferences and set it to Steam Beta Update.
From there Steam will update and restart, and you will be welcome to a new front for your games. The library page now has a combination of listed games on the left side with cover art taking up most of the screen.
In the age of games as a service and constant updates, it can be easy to lose track of new content for your games. The What’s New tab sets to remedy this, by promoting updates and patch notes right on top of the page.
Under the What’s New tab is the Recent Games tab, which catalogs your most recently played games. You can add more shelves of games depending on your preferences and sort them how you would like, from alphabetical order to games your friends are playing.
Each game’s individual page has also been redesigned to make community updates or friends recent activity more accessible. In regards to friends, the new update features more of your friend’s recent activity and what games they are playing.
The Collections tab aims to help sort through your ever-growing list of games. You can either drag and drop games into a set or use the Dynamic Collection feature to quickly group games using Steam’s tagging system.
As this is a beta program, it does run slower than the previous library. Hopefully, fixes will improve usability. Another small change is the shift from horizontal to vertical cover art for games, which will require developers to update their art to fit the beta.
The Steam Library beta sets out to bring more communal focus and organization for your games, and if that sounds interesting it is worth checking out. To find out more, go to store.steampowered.com/libraryupdate.
