Valve Just Made Some Big Changes to Steam Tags, And The New Additions Shed Light on Recent Trends

As one of the most popular PC gaming storefronts around, Steam is home to a truly overwhelming number of games. This can make it pretty hard to use the site for discovery, but Valve has been hard at work trying to improve that. Recent changes to the Steam homepage and storefront are aimed at helping gamers see more recommendations that fit their interests. Now, Valve has made some sweeping changes to Steam tags to further improve discoverability on the PC storefront. But the updates also give us some interesting insight into gaming trends.

In a May 18th update, Steam removed 28 store tags, added 17 new ones, and merged or adjusted a few others. These tags are assigned to games by developers, players, and Steam curators. And the list hasn’t been updated since 2024, meaning that it was time to establish new categories gamers can use to locate the games that most interest them. These include the addition of a few new genre tags like Bullet Heaven or Desktop Companion, not to mention some ultra-specific content tags like Capybara. Along with making Steam easier to navigate, this latest wave of tag updates shows us what’s trending in the world of PC games.

Newly Added Steam Tags Prove Cozy & Idle Games are On the Rise

First, let’s take a look at the tags that Steam added in this latest update. In total, we got 17 new tags to categorize games by genre and content. And I spy a few interesting patterns in the full list, which appears below:

• Bullet Heaven – The opposite of Bullet Hell; Focus on upgrades while automatically attacking hordes of enemies
• Desktop Companion – Games that only use part of your screen and keep you company while you do other things
• Organizing – Tidy up, de-clutter, or unpack, carefully placing items in virtual spaces
• Cleaning – Satisfying removal of grime and dirt from stuff
• Decorating – Creative placement of furniture and other objects
• Wuxia – Historical fantasy adventure featuring martial arts, competing sects, and inner qi
• Xianxia – Fantasy adventure focused on cultivating supernatural powers and strength
• Falling Blocks – Arranging, rotating, and placing blocks from above
• Espionage – Spying or secretly securing valuable intel
• Samurai – Japanese warriors best known for katanas, loyalty, and self-discipline
• Zoo – Care for and display a park full of wild animals
• Wolves – Also known as Canis Lupus
• Capybaras – The largest and possibly most adorable rodent species
• Animals – Cute and furry, or large and terrifying, and everything in between
• Cult – Small groups with extreme devotion to a person, thing, or belief
• Poker – Draw, bet, and bluff
• Language Learning – Learning and teaching new languages

Many of these tags reflect popular genres and trends in the indie gaming space, such as Poker-like games a la Balatro and Bullet Heaven titles. But you can also see how many gamers are flocking to cozy and idle games, with tags like Desktop Companion, Organizing, Cleaning, and Decoration being necessary to help gamers find their relaxing games of choice. The number of animal-related tags, like Animals, Capybaras, and Zoo fall under this umbrella, as well. Hopefully, these new additions will make it easier to explore the options in these categories/subjects.

Full List of Steam Tags Removed or Modified in the May 2026 Update

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While the newly added tags tell us what’s become popular, the removed tags are going away for a variety of reasons. Some are simply IP-specific and aren’t really appropriate for community-sourced tags, since official licensing is involved. Others are tags that may already be reflected in other available categories, whereas some were deemed simply too subjective. Here is the full list of 28 tags you’ll no longer find on Steam as of May 2026:

• 3D Vision
• Ambient
• America
• Blood
• Crowdfunded
• Cult Classic
• Documentary
• Drama
• Dungeons & Dragons
• Electronic
• Experience
• Feature Film
• Foreign
• GameMaker
• Games Workshop
• Illuminati
• Kickstarter
• LEGO
• Masterpiece
• Mature
• Movie
• Narration
• NSFW
• Roguevania
• RPGMaker
• Warhammer 40K
• Web Publishing
• Well-Written

Along with these removed tags, Valve has renamed a few tags to clarify them or to create a more consistent style across tags. The modified tags in this latest Steam update are:

• “Clicker” has been renamed into “Incremental” to capture the broader essence of games that focus on numbers going up.
• “Conversation” has been renamed to “Dialogue Heavy” for clarity
• We’ve made a few tags plural to match other tags: Dogs, Foxes, Vampires, Elves, Dwarves, and Assassins
• “Pool” was humorously applied to games with a swimming pool, so we’ve renamed this to “Billiards”, which is the overarching term for all games played with cue sticks anyway
• Merging “Jet” into “Flight”, as the term “Jet” was not unique enough.
• Merging “Unforgiving” into “Difficult” since these terms mostly overlap in usage and intent

In all, these changes are an effort to make community tags on Steam more useful. Given that users can apply these tags, they have historically not always been the most accurate. In theory, making sure available tags accurately reflect the new games coming to Steam should help with this. But at any rate, it’s interesting to see what Valve deems common enough to require brand-new tags on Steam.

What do you think of Steam tags? Do you find them useful when browsing for PC games? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!