New Steam update from Valve lets you trace your entire backlog

Valve’s Steam client update for August 1 adds several new features including a timer and the ability to sort your Steam Library by the date each game was added.

Ken Allsop

Published: Aug 2, 2023

A new Steam update has rolled out from Valve, updating the Steam client with some new features and fixing a number of common bugs. This Steam patch changes quite a few small things, but probably the most welcome news for many players is that you can now sort your Steam library by date added, giving you a quick and easy way to check in on all the best PC games in your backlog and see the full history of your account.

These latest Steam patch notes from Valve also include a new timer for the Steam overlay, which lets you keep track of how long you’ve been playing. Unfortunately, it’s just a countdown timer at the moment, so it can’t be used as a stopwatch for timing your speedruns, but if you’re susceptible to losing track of time while deep in a Civilization marathon or getting heavily invested in all the Baldur’s Gate 3 romance options then this should prove handy.

What I’m most happy about, however, is the addition of a ‘Sort by date added to Library’ feature for your Collections and Shelves. Finally, I can see the full extent of my Steam history, as well as track down exactly how that huge pile of shame built up. Combined with Valve’s Dynamic Collections tool, it’s now easier than ever to line up all the games you’ve never played and see exactly when you bought each one.

That’s also quite handy if you’re susceptible to buying numerous games whenever a big Steam sale kicks off and then forgetting about some of them, as you’ll be able to easily check back in. I’ve already been having fun tracing the history of my first few big sales after I initially installed Steam, with big bundles of classic PC games all suddenly landing in my library on a single day.

There are also several improvements to controller support and the Steam Input functionality to help improve compatibility. PlayStation controllers can now make use of touchpad typing with the on-screen keyboard, and will now stay in DirectInput compatible mode over Bluetooth if you disable Steam Input.

Here are the full Steam patch notes for the August 1 update from Valve:

If your digital library shelves are still looking a little bare, take a look through the best free Steam games to help fill them out. Then head over to the best upcoming games to see what’ll be next on your list.