Steam’s search bar just got a lot better
Valve has updated Steam store search to make it easier to explore categories larger than just the name of a game. The search bar on the Steam store can now better search for tags, developers, publishers, and franchises across web, app, and mobile. It’ll also handle misspellings and typos much better than it did in the past.
The improvement comes in the form of a feature that deploys existing categories and tags into the search bar as you type, much like suggestions pop up for game names as you search.
The changes came about because Valve saw players’ search habits shifting in this direction. “We noticed more players searching for particular store hubs, tags, or developers so we’ve updated Steam to handle those destinations,” it said in a news post (opens in new tab).
For example, a search for “dungeon” will now pop up suggested tags like “Dungeon Crawler” and “Mystery Dungeon” alongside games with Dungeon in the name. That means you can find the big directory of zombie-tagged games by just searching “Zombie” or what have you. You can also search for broader categories like Free to Play, which were previously mostly found by browsing the Categories tab at the top.
Similar functionality now exists for publishers and franchises. You can search Bethesda, for example, to get their publisher page, or search Star Wars and get all them Star Wars games. Or Lord of the Rings, or Warhammer, or whatever.
Finally, for those of you who cannot, or will not, spell words correctly, Steam’s search now handles typing mistakes better. You no longer need to spell intergalactic correctly to enjoy Intergalactic Fishing.
So go forth and enjoy your time playing Entergalatick Fishing, or whatever. I tried and it didn’t know what that was. So maybe learn to spell better than that.
