Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Steam’s revamped chat client makes it easier to game with friends

By
Valve

Steam’s overhauled chat client is now available to all Steam users. The client, which comes off as Valve’s answer to Discord, had been available in beta since June.

The bottom line: the client is a substantial improvement over the previous version, which badly needed an update. The mantra of the new client is versatility. It now supports group chat, differentiated channels, voice chat, and instant sharing of images and video, including YouTube clips and GIFs. You can now easily see which of your friends are online and invite them to voice chat using a simple drag and drop system.

Recommended Videos

The new client is obviously aimed at providing a better gaming experience with friends. Being able to create groups on the fly and save them for future use is one of the most impactful changes. Now you can keep your Counter-Strike: Global Offensive group separate from your League of Legends group. If you want to invite a friend to play with you, you can do that with ease now. You can also send a link through email, text, or in-app message to invite them into your game party.

Related

Steam’s voice chat uses WebRTC on its backend for security. Voice chat is encrypted and goes through Steam’s servers, not directly to your friends. This design keeps both your IP address to yourself and hides your location.

Valve designed a fresh UI for the chat, one that it said makes it easier to improve the overall Steam experience going forward.

“Friends and chat are just the beginning. This update was built using a new UI framework and includes some important architectural improvements under the hood, all of which allow us to make more frequent updates to our web-based Steam components. There are many improvements to the overall Steam experience that we plan to tackle, and your feedback helps us to prioritize what’s next.”

The interface, as you’ll notice in the screenshot above, bears resemblance to Discord, the leading app for online gaming communication. It remains to be seen if Discord users will move over to Steam’s new and improved chat client, but at least gamers now have an option that doesn’t require them to have both Steam and Discord running at the same time.

Steam’s new chat app is available via the client app and on browsers.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Steven Petite
Steven Petite
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…
As the use of AI rises in games, SAG-AFTRA is fighting to make the tech ethical
AI-generated NPCs sit at a bar.

Every year, the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) acts as an all-important watercooler moment for the video game industry. It’s the one time a year where developers can widely gather to share their innovations, discuss the state of the industry, and advocate for change at scale. This year’s show, though, is especially crucial. It comes amid a catastrophic wave of layoffs across studios that’s put well over 10,000 individuals out of work. That’s happening as executives look to tools like generative AI to cut costs, which has created a firestorm over labor issues.

Unionization and worker protections are set to be the headline of this year’s show, and there’s a major player in attendance that will speak to those issues. Representatives from the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) will be on hand this week, hosting panels on queer representation and the dangers of deepfake technology in games. While the union will speak to several parallel issues currently plaguing the industry, it’ll also be a key voice in championing the ethical use of AI during a week where that’s sure to be a heated subject.

Read more
The Steam Deck OLED needs burn-in protection
The Steam Deck OLED sitting in a case.

The Steam Deck OLED is starting to show burn-in issues.

YouTuber Wulff Den released a report on the Steam Deck OLED, showing it suffered from OLED burn-in after 1,500 hours of screen time. This isn't the first time we've seen a torture test on the Steam Deck OLED, but Wulff Den's experiment is particularly potent. The YouTuber was among the only people to put the Nintendo Switch OLED to the test on the burn-in front, and the consistent updates over the course of two years remain some of the most-viewed videos on the channel.

Read more
I turned my Steam Deck into the ultimate cross-platform gaming machine
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth running on the Steam Deck.

I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which, as a self-proclaimed PC gaming snob, would have presented a problem for me in the past. After all, a console exclusive like Rebirth just doesn't fit into my typical pattern of gaming, which oscillates between desktop at home and Steam Deck on the go.

But I've found a solution, opening up the world of third-party apps and breaking the mold for the Steam Deck. It's allowed me to game far beyond my Steam library, revealing the immense versatility that is latent in the Steam Deck's design.
Streaming your PS5

Read more