Steam Introduces Achievement Sets, Letting DLC Achievements Display Separately

Valve has made a structural adjustment to the Steam achievement system. The new feature is called "achievement sets," and the core idea is simple: manage and display a game's base achievements and each DLC's achievements separately.

Why the achievement system needs grouping

Since Steam's achievement system launched in 2007, its basic logic has remained unchanged: one game corresponds to one achievement list. This wasn't a problem in the era when games only had base content, but today's AAA titles often have three or four DLCs, each bringing a batch of new achievements—all piled into the same list.

As a result, when you want to see which achievements you haven't unlocked yet in a game, you're faced with an extremely long list mixing base game content, season pass content, and standalone expansions. It's hard to tell which part of the content a particular achievement belongs to, and you can't clearly gauge your base game completion rate.

Valve mentioned in the feature description: "In games that support sets, you'll still unlock achievements by playing as usual. But when you later browse your unlocked content, Steam will..."—though the official description is cut off here, the intent is clear: make the ownership of achievements immediately obvious.

Steamworks is the official backend tool suite Valve provides to game developers and publishers, covering nearly everything needed to release a game on the Steam platform: uploading builds, configuring store pages, managing pricing and discounts, setting up achievements and trading cards, generating activation keys, viewing sales and player data, and more. Developers access these services through the web-based Steamworks backend and the accompanying Steamworks SDK (Software Development Kit). Platform-level features like achievements, cloud saves, and multiplayer are essentially APIs provided by Steamworks—games need to call them in code and complete the corresponding configuration in the backend before they take effect. Therefore, even if a feature has already launched on the client side, players won't see any change unless developers proactively adapt it in their own Steamworks project—this also explains why many new Steam features often go through a process of being adopted by a few games first before gradually spreading.

How developers use this system

The key to the achievement sets feature is that it requires developers to actively configure it in the Steamworks backend. In other words, Steam doesn't automatically split your existing achievements by DLC—game development teams need to manually define the grouping rules.

For new games, this isn't much of an extra burden—just configure the grouping information alongside planning achievements. But for games that have been on the market for years with an already-established achievement system, whether to go back and adapt is a decision that requires weighing trade-offs. Adapting means extra work; not adapting means players still face a messy achievement list.

This "optional support" design approach is consistent with many of Steam's previous feature updates—such as rich media displays and trading cards—all of which provide tools for developers, with adoption depending on each team's own judgment.

What it means for players

The most direct change is an improved achievement browsing experience. Imagine opening The Witcher 3's achievement page: base game achievements in one group, "Blood and Wine" and "Hearts of Stone" each in their own group, and you can see at a glance which content you've completed and which you haven't touched.

This is especially valuable for two types of players. One is achievement hunters—they need to precisely track their completion progress, and after grouping, they can more strategically plan which DLC's achievements to tackle first. The other is returning players—opening the game again after six months and wanting to see what achievements the newly purchased DLC offers, grouped display is far more efficient than digging through a mixed list.

However, it's worth noting that the number of games supporting this feature initially may be limited. The ultimate effect of this change to Steam's achievement system depends on how many developers are willing to follow up and adapt.

In the Steam context, achievement hunter refers to a group of players whose core enjoyment is "collecting all achievements in a game." For them, achievement completion itself is the game goal: 100% completion often requires repeatedly challenging high-difficulty content, completing hidden conditions, and even relying on guides and community collaboration. Steam also provides supporting mechanisms for these players, such as global achievement rarity percentages—which show what proportion of players have unlocked a particular achievement, with rarer achievements having more "showing off" value; there are also perfect game showcases and all-achievement badges. For achievement hunters, a list that mixes base game and multiple DLC achievements makes it hard to judge "how far am I from full completion" and "which are from the base game and which could be skipped," so the progress visualization brought by achievement sets is especially valuable to them.

The question of DLC achievement ownership finally has an answer

This update also carries an implicit signal: Valve is taking DLC's status as an independent content unit seriously. In the past, DLC achievements mixed into the base game list, somewhat blurring the boundary between "base game experience" and "additional content experience."

After grouping, players will also psychologically distinguish more clearly: "I beat the base game" and "I beat the base game plus all DLCs" are two different concepts of completion. This will have subtle but lasting effects on community discussions, achievement guide writing, and even the game's evaluation system.

The achievement system isn't Steam's most prominent feature, but it's a visual record of players' time investment. Organizing it clearly is something worth doing for the platform ecosystem.

DLC (Downloadable Content) refers to additional downloadable content released after a game's base version, commonly including story expansion packs, new maps, new characters, skins and cosmetics, etc. On Steam, DLC is usually sold as a separate product; after purchase, it's linked to the base game and automatically merged when running. By content volume, DLC can be divided into campaign-level large expansions (such as The Witcher 3's "Blood and Wine" and "Hearts of Stone"), medium-scale season pass content, and purely decorative cosmetic packs. Different types of DLC have different significance for achievements: story expansions often come with systematic challenging achievements, while cosmetic packs usually have none or very few achievements. It's precisely this difference that makes presenting achievements separated by content source meaningful—players can judge whether an achievement comes from paid expansion content or from the base game's own challenges.

One-line Summary

Valve introduces achievement sets for Steam, letting base game and DLC achievements be configured and displayed separately.

Paragraph Summary

Valve has introduced "achievement sets" for the Steam achievement system, allowing developers to manage and display base game and DLC achievements separately, solving the long-standing problem of mixed achievement lists. The feature requires developers to actively configure it in the Steamworks backend—it's not automatically split by Steam—so it's optional support, similar to previous updates like rich media displays and trading cards. For players, grouping makes achievement browsing clearer; achievement hunters and returning players benefit most, able to precisely track base game and DLC completion, and reinforcing the distinction between "beating the base game" and "completing all content." However, the number of games supporting it initially depends on developer willingness, and the ultimate effect remains to be seen.