The new Steam tags system update is removing 28 options while adding 17 new ones to describe games better.
The tags system is the latest portion of Steam that Valve is pushing an update to, and this one is aiming to improve discovery and recommendations in the store. The last update to Steam tags happened in 2024, adding Dice, Dwarf, Boomer Shooter, and Elf to the list. Now, the company is adding 17 new tags while removing 28 and modifying a few more.
“Tags help developers better describe their game to players but also help Steam understand what kind of game it is and show it accordingly to players via recommendations,” says Valve, explaining why the tags system is useful. “Tags are also the foundation upon which each of the store hubs are built, allowing players to find all of the games tagged with their favorite genre, theme, style, or other relevant context.”
The full list of new tags available from today on Steam is 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
At the same time, the following 28 are being removed entirely:
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Valve said that many of the removed tags have better descriptive options available already. For example, instead of NSFW and Mature, players can use options like Gore or Violent. Too subjective tags (Masterpiece or Well-Written) and intellectual properties (Warhammer 40K) have also been a target for elimination.
Any tags that were marked as ‘Excluded’ by players from their personal store results should be safe from these changes as well, as Valve says the new variants will migrate with the older decisions.
Lastly, the update’s newly modified tags are described as follows, which includes several renamings and merges:
- “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
As for what tags are the most popular on the platform, Valve revealed that “singleplayer” is applied to over 98,000 games (62% of Steam), while the “indie” tag is sported by over 82,000 games (53% of Steam.)
