Instantly access to your favorite games on Steam, with thousands of games, exclusive deals, automatic game updates and other great perks. With Steam you can also join the Steam Community of PC gamers, join game groups, form clans, chat in-game and more.
Name a few great free games available on Steam…
We have two dedicated articles highlighting great titles available for free on Steam, but to name a few popular ones: Counter-Strike, Apex Legends, Lost Ark, PUBG, Destiny 2, War Thunder, Dota 2, Warframe, Team Fortress 2, and World of Warships.
Why is Steam so popular?
Steam was originally created by Half-Life developer Valve as a platform to update their games and distribute them digitally back in 2003. The service had a slow start, at the time facing competition from brick and mortar stores and physical game copies, but it didn’t take long until it became the top digital distribution platform for PC gamers. Over the years Valve has successfully grown a platform that hosts games from most other publishers, studios, and game creators in general.
Is there anything better than Steam?
Steam remains the biggest PC gaming platform, but there are good alternatives like the Epic Games Store, GOG Galaxy, Uplay, Origin and Itch.io.
Does Steam have Fortnite?
Fortnite is developed by Epic Games, who have their own competing platform, so Fortnite is not on Steam.
Is there a monthly fee for Steam?
Absolutely not. Steam is free and the platform makes money through the sale of games and other digital content.
How do I install Steam Beta?
Opting in to the Steam Beta Client lets you use the latest features before they’re released. Follow these instructions to participate in the beta:
- With Steam running, click on “Steam” in the upper left, then choose the “Settings” menu. (Preferences on Mac)
- On the “Account” tab under “Beta Participation” click the “Change…” button.
- Select the “Steam Beta Update” from the drop down list and click “OK”.
- You will be prompted to restart Steam, please select the “Restart Steam” button.
Create and Share Content
Gift your friends, trade items, and even create new content for games in the Steam Workshop. Help shape the future of your favorite games.
Entertainment Anywhere
Whether you’re on a PC, Mac, Linux box, mobile device, or even your television, you can enjoy the benefits of Steam. Take the fun with you.
Available on PC, Mac, and Linux
We offer a catalog of PC, Mac, and Linux games, many of which support Steam Play so you can buy once and play anywhere, and Cross-Platform Multiplayer so you can play with all your friends, no matter where they log in.
What’s New
- Android version updated to 3.9.6
Note: This update was re-released on January 21st with the following additional changes:
- Fixed an issue where dropdown menus would sometimes fail to appear.
- Fixed “Processing Shaders” status window failing to show during game launch on Linux.
- Fixed an issue where foreground colors did not apply correctly to Steam Input Virtual menus.
- Updated localization.
General
- Added a global setting for improved management of game updates.
- Added a panel to manage per-game exceptions to the global setting.
- Added keyboard controls for dropdown lists in the client.
- Added “View In Library” to the context menu for games on the downloads page.
- Clicking on the game image of the actively downloading item on the downloads page will now navigate to the game’s library page.
- Updated layout of downloads page for the active item.
- Improved caching of Soundtrack album covers in library.
- Improved library asset loading times for large libraries.
- Fixed Steam Client exiting instead of showing a refresh login dialog if another client session starts playing a game or resumes from suspend in a game session.
- Fixed Steam Client exiting while running a game if a Steam Deck is resumed while running a non-Steam app.
- Fixed a case where Steam would prefer to stream from another PC on your local network if the game was installed on both PCs and could be played without streaming.
- Fixed a stall in games after taking a screenshot for users with very large numbers of local screenshots (10’s of thousands).
- Fixed Steam window being draggable from left and right edges when maximized on the Store/Community view.
Library
- Fixed friends showing multiple times in the “In-Game” section if they also had the game on their wishlist.
Game Recording
- Improved error messages for limited accounts sharing messages in chat or via the share menu.
- Fixed OpenGL games failing to record on Linux.
- Fixed issue which prevented audio capture from some games on Windows 11 24H2.
Steam Overlay
- Added support for bookmarks saved per game in the overlay browser.
- Improved reliability of saving for notes.
- Fixed scroll position, selection, and undo history getting lost when switching between notes.
- When editing notes, the “Insert Link” button can now edit links as well, and can be opened with ctrl-k.
- The toolbar buttons in notes will now display the associated keyboard shortcut in their tooltips.
Remote Play
- Fixed Remote Play Together session not fully starting for some games running on macOS host systems.
Big Picture Mode
- Updated suspend animation when not on Steam Deck.
- Fixed several issues where navigation could get stuck behind menus or dialogs.
- Fixed an issue where the guide button would open the menu in the main steam window instead of in the game overlay.
- Fixed cases where repeatedly accessing the controller configurator in the overlay would leave extra instances of it in the backstack after exiting the game.
macOS
- Added “End of Life” alert for macOS 10.15 (“Catalina”). Steam Client support for these operating systems will end on February 15th, 2025 at 10am. See here for additional details.
- Fixed game recording failures on Apple Silicon Macs when recording native games.
- Fixed audio in Remote Play Together sessions when streaming a native game from an Apple Silicon Mac.
- Fixed mouse input to Steam Overlay not working for some multi-display configurations.
Linux
- Fixed a case where Steam could permanently inhibit the screensaver if it crashed while holding the screensaver lock.
- Fixed potential crash when exiting a game if Game Recording is enabled on systems with recent versions of pipewire.
- Fixed high single core CPU usage for users with large libraries during Steam startup.
- Fixed a rare issue which resulted in a GetTimelineLoaderForGame() error showing in the in-game overlay.
- Fixed crash in games using Steam P2P Voice Chat.
- Fixed a crash in the game recording viewer caused by unstable vaapi drivers (disable GPU in recording settings).
- Fixed a case where navigation menus stopped showing after closing a game.
- Fixed a rare crash when hotplugging a mouse and keyboard.
Steam Input
- Reduced overhead/latency of controller input in Big Picture Mode and Virtual Menus.
- Slightly reduced steady-state CPU usage of Steam Input overall.
- Added visualization of mode shifts to the Preview Layout page.
- Added the ability to have a mode shift without needing to have a mode already on a source.
- Added Nintendo Switch controller configurations to the options shown by default for the Wireless HORIPAD for Steam so that gyro configurations are more easily found.
- Made the “Choose a Configuration” page remember which tab you were on when returning from previewing a configuration.
- Made the “Choose a Configuration” page remember the setting to show/hide configurations from other controller types.
- In Options->Controller->Calibration & Advanced Settings->Gyro Calibration, the gamepad Pitch, Yaw, and roll ion rotation now come from the internal quaternion that drives many of the new “Gyro to…” modes, and Steam Input api’s GetMotionData.
- Gyro Drift Corrections now save during successful manual calibration, rather than only when exiting Steam.
- Fixed some Linux-specific crashes.
- Fixed a crash at startup when certain analog keyboards are connected.
- Fixed not being able to use “Export Layout->Save New Layout” when using a “Sharable Personal Layout”.
- Fixed an issue where previewing a configuration, then editing your original configuration could corrupt it.
- Fixed a case where the title of the configuration in the summary screen would break after making an edit.
- Fixed a case where inputs with multiple bindings would show up as [object] [object] after removing a binding.
- Fixed SIAPI trigger bindings sometimes not working when bound to buttons.
- Fixed Gyro as Joystick mode ignoring sensitivity settings.
- Fixed a case where mode shift bindings leftover from a bug in 2019 could activate a mode shift that was disabled in the UI.
- Fixed detecting thumbsticks that have been mapped to a D-pad in controller setup.
- Fixed the left/right trigger soft pull showing in the mode shift button dropdown as “none”.
- Fixed the mode shift button sometimes not having a localization token in the summary page.
- Fixed virtual menus showing as “Create Touch Menu” instead of “Touch Menu” in the summary page.
