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Steam separates base game achievements from expansion achievements

A beta gives developers more ways to keep completed challenges clearly organised.

Valve released a beta on 15 October that allows developers to organise Steam achievements into separate groups. This allows challenges from the base game to remain separate from those in additional downloadable content.

The change centres on achievements: awards that players earn by reaching particular goals in a game. Until now, new challenges from an expansion could reduce the completion percentage of a previously completed game. Players who had achieved everything would therefore no longer see one hundred per cent after an addition. PC Gamer describes this as one of the problems the new grouping is intended to solve.

Valve calls the groups Achievement Sets. Developers decide for themselves which achievements belong together. They can, for example, create a separate collection for a single-player campaign, matches with other players or a particular character class. The system therefore primarily changes how achievements are organised and displayed. Players continue to complete individual challenges by playing the game.

Downloadable expansions, usually referred to as DLC, will have a separate category. According to Valve, these achievements only count towards overall progress when a player has access to the corresponding content. This means someone does not need to own an expansion to complete all the base game's achievements. The new grouping only works in games for which the developer has actually set up the groups.

Time-limited challenges also have a place in the system. Developers can archive achievements or entire groups when they can no longer be earned. Anyone who has already completed such a challenge keeps it on their profile. For players who missed the opportunity, an archived achievement does not prevent completion. This makes it possible, for example, to distinguish between permanent game objectives and challenges for a temporary event.

The revamped overview page brings together overall progress, individual groups and individual achievements. Players can also compare their progress with up to three friends at once. PC Gamer reports that this makes various elements that were previously grouped together less clearly available on a single page. The service is still in the testing phase; the announcement does not confirm that every Steam user can already see the change in every game.

For developers, the key point is that they can adjust the grouping through Steamworks. According to the documentation, they do not need to update their game or the Steamworks software library to do so. Without additional groups, existing achievements remain in a single collection. Valve recommends creating a new group for new content. This is because a completed group retains its completion status when achievements are added, while players still working through it then have to complete more challenges.

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