Steam just changed how achievements work, at least for the 17 games that have opted in. On October 15-16, 2026, Valve put Achievement Sets into the Steam Client beta. Developers can now group achievements into separate sets, DLC achievements stop breaking your 100%, missable ones can be archived, and you can compare progress with up to three friends.
This is a beta, and it only works in games where the developer has built it in. Below: what is confirmed, how it works, who supports it and what nobody has said yet. We read four outlets because Valve's own announcement page and PC Gamer's full article would not load for us.
TL;DR: Steam Achievement Sets at a glance
| Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| What is it? | A way to group a game's achievements into sets, each with a progress bar |
| Status | Steam Client beta, for players and developers, announced October 15-16, 2026 |
| DLC achievements | Go in purple DLC sets that do not count toward overall progress until you own the content |
| Missable achievements | Developers can archive them, so they stop blocking completion |
| Friend compare | Up to 3 friends, including rare achievements and DLC sets |
| Supported games | 17 at launch, including Portal 2, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Forza Horizon 5 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 |
| Needs the developer? | Yes. Valve says developers must implement it directly |
| Release date | Not given |
What problem is Valve fixing?
Games that grow after launch have an old achievement problem. A studio ships an expansion with 20 new achievements, and everyone who had 100% is suddenly at 83%. Players who skipped the DLC cannot reach 100% at all. Seasonal events make it worse, because a holiday achievement from 2022 can never be earned again.
Achievement hunters have complained about this for years. Valve's answer is to stop treating a game's achievements as one flat list. FullCleared notes that the beta arrives a little over two weeks after Xbox announced "Mythic Achievements," which count only a game's original achievements and tag later ones as add-on content. Both platforms are now trying to protect old completions from new content.
How do Steam Achievement Sets work?
Developers decide how many sets a game has and what each one covers. Valve's own examples, as reported, are a single-player set and a multiplayer set, or eight class-based sets.
You unlock achievements the normal way. The change is in how Steam shows them:
- Sets with progress bars. The achievements list is grouped by set, and each set shows its own progress.
- Set complete trophy. Finish every achievement in a set and a "set complete" trophy lands on your profile.
- Completion is preserved. Valve says a completed set keeps its status even if developers later add achievements to it. Inven Global quotes the notice as "Completion records are now preserved."
- New content, new set. A developer who ships an expansion can put its achievements in a new set, so returning players see what is new without losing what they finished.
What are base-game sets and DLC sets?
The two types are color coded.
| Set type | Color | Who can earn it | Counts toward overall progress? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base game | Blue | Every player of the game | Yes |
| DLC | Purple | Only owners of the add-on | Only once you have the content |
TwistedVoxel quotes the rule directly: "These achievements will not count towards overall game progress until the required content has been acquired."
That one rule matters most. Under the old system, reaching 100% on a game with paid DLC could mean buying the DLC. Now the percentage is calculated from what you can actually earn. The catch: your percentage and your friend's percentage can differ for the same game, because you own different content. PCGamesN states it plainly: completion percentages account only for achievements available to each player.
What can developers archive?
Developers can archive a single achievement or a whole set. Valve pitches it for season-based games and time-limited holiday achievements. The rules, from FullCleared and Inven Global:
- Players who already unlocked an archived achievement keep it on their profile.
- Players who missed it no longer see it.
- It does not block completing a set or the whole game.
Inven reports that Valve recommends archiving anything that can no longer be unlocked. PCGamesN adds a hopeful reading: this could rescue games where 100% became impossible after a multiplayer mode shut down. That is the author's suggestion, not a Valve promise, and it only helps if each developer goes back and archives the dead achievements.
What changed on the achievements page?
Besides sets, the page itself is rebuilt. Confirmed across at least two outlets:
- Global Stats move. Unlock rates used to live on a separate page. They are now a toggle on the achievements page.
- Search filters. You can filter by set and by locked or unlocked.
- Compare with friends. Up to three at once, including rare achievements and DLC sets. Totals reflect what each player can earn.
- "Perfect Games" is renamed. PCGamesN and FullCleared call the new tab "Completed"; Inven Global writes "Completion." The label differs by outlet, so check your own client.
- Completionist Showcase. Games with completed sets can be added, not only fully perfect games.
- Store and Library badges. Pages will note when a game supports sets.
- Family Sharing. Games played through Family Sharing now appear in your Games List, and friends with Family Sharing playtime can be compared.
Which 17 games support Achievement Sets?
The list at the start of the beta, per FullCleared and TwistedVoxel:
- Against the Storm
- Age of Wonders 4
- American Truck Simulator
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4
- Crusader Kings III
- DREDGE
- Euro Truck Simulator 2
- Flock Around
- Forza Horizon 5
- He is Coming
- LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Portal 2
- PowerWash Simulator
- PowerWash Simulator 2
- Team Fortress 2
- Victoria 3
The mix is telling. Valve's own old games (Portal 2, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2) sit next to DLC-heavy strategy titles (Crusader Kings III, Victoria 3, Age of Wonders 4), two truck sims and a new Call of Duty. Those are exactly the games where DLC and seasons make completion messy. Inven reports Valve expects supported games to grow gradually.
How do I try it?
The beta is open to players and developers through the Steam Client beta. Steam's news post has the official opt-in instructions. We could not load that post, so we are not giving menu steps from memory. Follow Valve's instructions.
Then open one of the 17 games, go to its achievements and look for the set view. A game that does not support sets will look the same as before. That is not a bug.
What do we still not know?
Several answers are missing from every report we could read.
- A release date. No outlet we could open gives one. A search-result summary of PC Gamer says wide release is "likely" about a month away. Treat that as unconfirmed.
- Developer tooling. Inven says developers "must implement it directly." None of the reports describe the Steamworks setup.
- Retroactive handling. It is unclear whether a developer can regroup old achievements without resetting anyone's progress.
- Season passes. The headline of one PC Gamer article mentions season passes, but Inven says its source does not cover them specifically.
- Friend compare limits. Inven notes the full scope is unclear beyond the three-friend cap.
- Adoption. 17 games is a start. Whether big publishers follow is the real test.
Also note our source quality. Valve's announcement page loaded with no body text for us. The PC Gamer article returned only a headline, so the three-friend cap and other details come from FullCleared, TwistedVoxel and PCGamesN. Inven's piece is an AI-assisted translation of a Korean report. The core facts agree across all four.
What this means for achievement hunters and developers
For players. If you have been avoiding DLC because it would break a finished game, this removes the penalty on supported titles. If you chase rare achievements, the global-stats toggle and three-friend compare make planning easier. If you are a collector of old Steam libraries, watch for archiving, since it could turn some "impossible" games completable.
For developers. Sets turn a content update from a completion-reset problem into a feature. Ship the expansion with a new set, archive the event achievements when they end, and returning players do not get punished. The cost is the work of reorganizing existing lists, which Valve leaves to you.
For the platform fight. Valve and Xbox both moved on this within about two weeks. Our view, not a report: PlayStation trophies face the same DLC and live-service question.
Other Steam stories this week
- Steam hit a new all-time peak of 43.5 million concurrent users on October 11. Our check of the numbers is in Steam hits 43.5 million concurrent users: what the record really means.
- Epic's Linux plans and the Steam Deck anti-cheat gap are covered in Fortnite is coming to Linux, but not yet to Steam Deck.
- A new Steam co-op release is reviewed in Trash Day is out on Steam: is the raccoon co-op wagon game worth your squad's night?.
- Enshrouded 1.0 lists Steam Achievements among its features. See Enshrouded 1.0 is out.
- SteamDB, the site many achievement hunters use, changed owners in September. See Nexus Mods acquires SteamDB.
If you want a game to play while you decide what to hunt next, bunpav's own free browser games need no download and have no achievements to complete. Start at bunpav.com/play.
Details are accurate as of October 16, 2026, from Steam Client beta coverage by FullCleared, PCGamesN, TwistedVoxel and Inven Global. Beta features can change before release.