Steam to Support Showing Off Accessibility in Games Soon

Valve loves sharing all sorts of information with fans of Steam, from developers to gamers, and we get a bit of a look at the inner workings and machinations of how things are progressing thanks to their transparency. In the latest Steamworks Development group post (a Steam Group solely for developers, but everyday users can see the information in here), we got a look at what's coming to Steam sometime this year, and it's big for accessibility lovers!

Shown off on the 22nd of April, the Steamworks Development post gives players the opportunity to learn about how the accessibility feature will be implemented sometime throughout 2025. First rolling out to developers (due to the fact that they have to set up their titles to share information on the accessibility features included), it might be a while before we see any major changes coming to the Steam client, but we do know it's coming!

In the post, we learn a bit about how the developers will be able to interact with the accessibility options in Steamworks: picking which supported features are available. There are a few categories mentioned in the post for the types of accessibility features that Valve wants to highlight.

• Gameplay options (such as adjustable difficulty)
• Audio accessibility features
• Visual accessibility features
• Input options

Once developers have had the time to classify their titles within these groups and added their supported features, it will be rolling out to the public in the form of new categories. Gamers will be able to find this in the Store search in the future, and we get a bit of a sneak peek at what that's going to look like.

The first system that this will be supporting is the Store Search, where players will be able to look for games with specific accessibility features.In this category, we see four different dropdown menus with various options to pick from, giving us an even deeper look at what Valve is hoping to support.

Here's a look at each of the categories:

Gameplay:

• Adjustable Difficulty
• Save Anytime

Visual:

• Adjustable Text Size
• Subtitle Options
• Color Alternatives
• Camera Comfort

Audio:  

• Custom Volume Controls
• Stereo Sound
• Narrated Game Menus
• Playable without Timed Input

Input:

• Keyboard Only Option
• Mouse Only Option
• Touch Only Option
• Chat Speech-to-text
• Chat Text-to-speech

That's not all, though, as this will also appear in Steam's "About this game" section, where they use Portal 2 as an example, showing off how the accessibility features will appear in the store page. This might be a bit of a "niche" change, but more accessibility and marketing for said accessibility is something we shouldn't be overlooking.

We may not know when this is rolling out on Steam's client for users to take advantage of, but according to the post, we can expect it sometime in 2025, which is good news for those who are looking forward to it.