Steam reviews now show when the writer played primarily on Steam Deck

By Carli Velocci Published August 22, 2024

The Heroic Games Launcher for Steam Deck. — Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Steam is continuing to refresh its customer review system with a small but potentially impactful new feature. Reviews will now note if the user had primarily played the game on the Steam Deck.

Valve announced the update on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday, showcasing a new Steam Deck icon that appears in the top right of a Steam review, next to the star icon that mentions a player played the game on Steam and, therefore, their thoughts will be counted in the overall score. Seems like an appropriate place to put it.

Recommended Videos

Good morning! We’ve just shipped a new feature on Steam that shows when a customer review was written by someone who played primarily on Steam Deck. Keep an eye out for the Deck icon to see how these players reviewed the game, and let us know what you think! pic.twitter.com/RYVa9wVGYi

— Steam Deck (@OnDeck) August 22, 2024

Please enable Javascript to view this content

This might not seem like a big deal, but the gaming experience can vary wildly between your regular ol’ PC and the Steam Deck. There’s a reason why the Steam Deck verification system exists, after all. Some games just haven’t been optimized for it and controllers, and while users can do a lot of heavy lifting to get games to work, it’s often not a complete solution. Despite Steam Deck verification, a game also just might not be pleasant to play on the handheld console (looking at you, Baldur’s Gate 3).

Steam has been working on its review system for years, but has been implementing some changes lately to make top reviews more useful. It began testing a new system that would improve the “helpfulness” of user reviews by pushing ones that just have jokes or ASCII art down through user reporting and machine learning.

Valve also recently updated the platform to improve demo discoverability and the information on Steam store pages by removing links to third-party websites in the description.

Topics

Contributor, Games

Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…

Computing

Steam Replay 2024 is live — here’s how to see yours

It's that time of year again -- time for Steam Replay. Similar to Xbox Year in Review and PlayStation Wrap-Up, Steam Replay 2024 looks back over your gameplay stats for the entire year, showing you what you've played, how long you've played it, and the feats you've accomplished along the way.

As usual, Steam Replay runs through the end of the year, so if you want to view your Replay and unlock the exclusive Steam Replay 2024 badge, you'll need to sign in soon. Thankfully, you can save your Steam Replay to your profile as a featured showcase, as well as share it out with your friends to view throughout the next year.
How to see Steam Replay 2024

Gaming

You can now buy a refurbished Steam Deck straight from Valve — if it’s in stock

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth running on the Steam Deck.

Have you wanted to buy a Steam Deck, but aren't sure about the price? The $399 LCD model is the least expensive, but it's worth a little extra for the Steam Deck OLED, which offers double or even quadruple the onboard memory. Good news: You can now buy a refurbished Steam Deck directly from Valve. Fair warning: These are selling like hotcakes on the coldest day of the year. At the time of writing, you could pick up a 512GB Steam Deck OLED for just $439, or a 1TB version for $519.

So what does refurbished mean, exactly? According to Steam, the units are put through all the same tests as brand-new retail units, and each Steam Deck receives a factory reset, software update, and thorough examination. All of the different systems are checked and tested, including the battery.

Gaming

Valve’s Fremont could be the successor to the Steam Machine

Valve Steam Machine Controller hands on in use

When the original Steam Machine was announced in 2015, it promised a massive change from traditional gaming experiences. The console-slash-PC gained a lot of attention, but a variety of factors stopped it from being a success. Poor performance sent many players back to standard PC gaming, while the high price meant Valve sold less than 500,000 units. Despite its failure, though, the Steam Machine had a lot of fans — many of whom have waited years for a follow-up. And now it might actually be on the way.

A Reddit user named u/coolbho3k spotted a reference to the Fremont project in the Steam Deck kernel. The code doesn't make it clear exactly what sort of device Fremont will be, but it references a platform called AMD Lilac. Users have also found references to the same platform on Geekbench, where it scores significantly higher than the Steam Deck. Were it another handheld, this platform would leave the Steam Deck in its wake — and that makes it all the more likely to be a TV box or set-top box of sorts, according to Tom's Hardware.