Steam's Big Library Update Is Now Available for Everyone

Valve officially released its major Steam library update for all of its users this week to give them a fresh, new experience while browsing their games. Aside from a refreshed visual design, this update has a couple of helpful features like easy access to updates games have received and refined social features to show people what their friends are doing. This update was initially rolled out to people as a beta but has now been fully released as of Wednesday.

Steam's big library update has been on the way for a while now after leaks and previews gave Steam users a taste of what was to come. Anyone who now fires up Steam to play their games will see the results of that update. You can navigate through them yourself to find out what's new, but Valve also shared a helpful recap of everything that's changed in the Steam update to walk players through the changes.

"The first thing you'll probably notice is that we're launching a gorgeous new landing page for your library," Valve's update said to give players a heads up about the different layout they'll find. "The new library home gives you quick access to game updates, recently played games, friends activity and your collections."

If you've taken a break from a game, you'll be able to see what updates have released along with a quick summary of what's happened. Since most games-as-a-service titles now have frequent events that overlap with one another, another feature will also alert users to any events that might be of interest so that they don't miss out on them. These event notifications will be found within an "in-library event feature" so that users won't have to worry about navigating a flood of notifications every time they hop on Steam.

To see who else is online and what they're doing, Valve has also updated some of Steam's social features to better give an idea of what your community is into that day.

"We're also making it easy to see what your friends have been up to and which games they are currently playing," Valve said. "You can find out what games your friends have been playing right on the library home page, and see what games they are currently playing from your games list. With all this new information, you shouldn't miss out on the tantalizing water-cooler conversation about everyone's weekend replay of Portal 2."

Steam's big library update is now available to all users.