Steam players can now try Achievement Sets, a beta feature that groups a game’s achievements and preserves completed sets when developers add more challenges. Valve’s update also separates DLC progress, lets developers archive unobtainable achievements, and replaces the Perfect Games tab with a broader Completed section. The change tackles a familiar frustration: finishing everything in a game, then seeing extra content move the finish line.
In its Achievement Sets announcement, Valve says the feature is available through the Steam Client beta, with 17 games already supporting it. Developers choose how to organise their achievements, so the layout will depend on the game. Players still earn unlocks through normal play; the difference comes in how Steam tracks and displays that progress afterwards.
Finishing a set gives you a lasting trophy
Instead of presenting every achievement as one long checklist, supported games can split them into related collections, each with a progress bar. Valve suggests separate single-player and multiplayer sets, or collections built around individual character classes. Completing every achievement in a set adds a trophy to your profile, and Valve says that completion is preserved if more achievements later join the set.
Developers can also create fresh sets for expansions and other updates, giving returning players a separate collection to work through. That approach makes new challenges easier to find without erasing the record of what someone previously completed. As VGC reports, protecting completion status as games receive DLC is one of the main reasons for the change.
The system distinguishes between base-game and DLC sets. Base-game achievements, available to everyone who plays that game, use blue progress indicators and trophies. DLC sets use purple, and their achievements don’t count towards your overall game progress until you have access to the extra content. You can still browse the game’s possible achievements to see what its add-ons introduce.
For someone who finishes the original game but skips an expansion, that changes what the overall progress total represents. Buying or otherwise acquiring access to the extra content brings its achievements into the calculation. It also means two friends can have different totals for the same game because they have different content available to them.
Retired achievements stop blocking completion
Valve is also giving developers tools to archive individual achievements or entire sets. People who earned them keep them visible on their profiles, while players who missed them won’t see those archived unlocks on theirs. Archived achievements won’t block progress towards completing a set or game, either.
Valve presents this as a way to support seasonal challenges and limited-time holiday achievements. It also tells developers to archive an achievement whenever players can no longer unlock it. The practical benefit depends on developers using those tools: the update gives them a way to retire impossible challenges while preserving the record for people who earned them.
That design lets a temporary event leave a lasting reward without leaving everyone else with an unfinishable checklist. A developer could build a set around one season, then archive it after the opportunity to earn its achievements ends. Players who participated would retain their unlocks, while those arriving later could work towards completion using the achievements still available.
A new page for progress and friend comparisons
The redesigned achievements page brings together overall progress, individual sets, and details about each unlock. You can reach it from your Games List on the web or from games in your Steam Library. Global Stats, which show how many players earned each achievement, become a toggle on that page rather than a separate destination.
Search gains filters for specific sets and for locked or unlocked achievements, making a large list easier to narrow down. Friend comparisons now support up to three friends and cover rare achievements, completed sets, and DLC progress. Valve says the total achievement count reflects what each player can actually earn, taking their add-ons and time-limited or archived achievements into account.
Those changes extend beyond the achievements page. The renamed Completed tab includes both fully completed games and games with completed sets, and the Completionist Showcase can display the latter. Completed sets also appear across areas including Recently Played, the Games List, and the Library, while Store and Library pages indicate whether a game supports sets.
Family Sharing gets two related changes. Games played through sharing now appear in the Games List, and friends who logged playtime through Family Sharing become eligible for achievement comparisons. That makes the comparison tools useful even when someone played a shared copy rather than their own purchase.
Which games support Achievement Sets?
Valve’s initial 17-game list includes Against the Storm, Age of Wonders 4, Crusader Kings III, Dredge, Forza Horizon 5, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, and Team Fortress 2. Both American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2 are included, alongside the two PowerWash Simulator games. Support will expand as more developers adopt the tools.
For now, trying the feature requires the Steam Client beta and a supported game. Updating the client alone doesn’t organise every game in your library into sets, because developers decide how to group their achievements. The beta gives players a chance to see that structure in action before more games adopt it.
Do Achievement Sets change how you unlock achievements?
No. You still earn achievements by playing as usual; developers use sets to organise those unlocks and Steam uses them to display progress.
Where can you check whether a game supports sets?
Valve says the game’s Store and Library pages will show whether it has Achievement Sets.
