Steam Achievement Sets are now in the Steam Client beta, and they tackle one of the most annoying things about chasing a perfect game: a new DLC drops, adds a pile of achievements, and your 100% quietly turns into 87%. Valve announced the feature on October 15, and 17 games already support it, from Portal 2 and Team Fortress 2 to DREDGE and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.
How sets work
Developers can now split a game’s achievements into groups. Valve’s examples are single-player and multiplayer sets, or one set per character class. You still unlock everything by playing normally, but when you open the new achievements page, the long list is broken up by set, and each set gets its own progress bar.
Finish every achievement in a set and Steam drops a “set complete” trophy on your profile. The important part is that the trophy sticks. If the developer adds more achievements to that set later, your completion stays put until you go back and play.
DLC gets its own lane
There are two kinds of sets. Base Game sets cover achievements anyone who owns the game can earn, and they show up in blue. DLC sets hold achievements tied to paid add-ons, they show up in purple, and they don’t count against your overall progress until you actually own that content.
So if you finished a game years ago and never bought the expansion, Steam stops treating you like you have unfinished business. You can still browse every DLC achievement from the new page if you’re curious what the add-on asks you to do.
Seasonal achievements can expire cleanly
Developers can also archive single achievements or whole sets once they can’t be unlocked anymore. Valve pitches this for season-based games and limited-time holiday events. If you earned an archived achievement, it stays on your profile. If you missed it, it disappears from your list and stops blocking your completion.
A new page and friend comparisons
The rebuilt achievements page, reachable from your Games List or a game in your Library, shows overall progress, progress per set, and each individual achievement. Global unlock percentages are now a toggle on the same page instead of a separate screen, and search can filter by set or by locked and unlocked achievements.
You can also compare progress with up to three friends at once, including rare unlocks, finished sets, and DLC progress. Since everyone’s total is now based on what they can actually earn, two friends can see different totals for the same game.
A few smaller changes ride along. The Perfect Games tab is now called Completed and includes games where you’ve finished a set. Completed sets can go in your Completionist Showcase. Games you play through Family Sharing now appear in your Games List and count for friend comparison, and store and library pages will flag games that use sets.
How to try it
Opt into the Steam Client Beta from Steam’s settings (Valve has a how-to here), then open one of the supported games. Valve says more games will show sets as developers add them, and it wants feedback during the beta through the Steam Client Beta discussions.
It’s a small change on paper, but for anyone who has watched a surprise DLC list knock a finished game off 100%, it should make coming back to old favorites a lot more fun.