- Valve’s Steam client just received numerous fixes and user interface additions in a new update
- User interface additions include text scaling, a high contrast mode, and cover art customization
- Fans are taking to social media to praise Valve CEO, Gabe Newell
Valve is continuing the growth of its PC game launcher, Steam, not only via updates for its SteamOS operating system, benefiting Steam Deck and other handheld gaming PC users, but also for the Steam client in its entirety with a new long-awaited update.
As reported by our good friends at GamesRadar+, Valve has released a Steam client update that sees significant changes to its user interface (UI) via new accessibility and customization options, along with multiple fixes you can find in the patch notes.
Users now have access to a UI scale to adjust text to small or large sizes, a high contrast mode for better text clarity against a darker background, a reduced motion setting, and a new customization tab to change the cover art and logo of each game.
The latter has technically been available already via a right mouse click on the background cover of a game, but Valve has gone out of its way to expand this with a dedicated tab.
For handheld gamers like myself, it’s very similar to a Decky Loader plugin for SteamOS users, known as SteamGridDB (available via GitHub, which allows users to replace default covers with a plethora of others, but this new update pushed by Valve requires manual change via personal downloaded files.
Users have already taken to Reddit to sing praises for Valve’s CEO, Gabe Newell, and that doesn’t come as a surprise considering the good grace Newell and Valve have earned from fans – and increasingly so, since the dawn of the Steam Deck.
Analysis: the Steam client on desktops and SteamOS on handhelds just keeps getting better and better
Without a shadow of a doubt, SteamOS is one of the best aspects of PC gaming, specifically for the Steam Deck and handheld gaming PCs, and Valve is continuously showing that with numerous updates to the Steam client.
I’m not going to get into why I don’t like Microsoft‘s Windows 11 for the umpteenth time, but the simple fact is that (in multiple games), SteamOS is the better offering in terms of game performance, specifically on handheld gaming PCs.
With tools like Decky Loader allowing the community to introduce great add-ons to improve the overall experience, SteamOS’s growth in terms of popularity is quite rapid and it’s great to see that Valve is trying to improve its Steam client with UI updates like this for all PC gamers and not just for Steam Deck users.
I’m very curious to see how much more Valve can add to the client, to further set it apart from other game launchers like Epic Games, and I’m willing to bet that it’s only going to get better from here.
