Steam’s new recording features allow deep integration with games

Steam’s game recording capabilities are now available on PC and on Steam Deck following a beta period. The suite of features offer a ton of flexibility that compete with other PC game clipping software, notably the GeForce Experience that’s offered by Nvidia. This includes the basics that most people would expect, like auto recording or manual clipping through keyboard hotkeys. But it goes further, with easy access to replays via the Steam overlay and intuitive exporting of clips via QR codes that you can then scan with your phone to share widely, or with friends. Valve notes that the features were designed to have a minimal impact on game performance by utilizing your GPU to encode the recording instead of your CPU.

The per-game settings is where Steam’s recording integration further stands out, giving gamers the ability to set auto-recording durations and the capture quality of each game in their library. Valve also made an SDK and API, so developers can program in-game events — such as a win, loss, or kill — to automatically trigger a clip recording. Some of that is on display in the embedded video above from Valve.

Dota 2 is used as an example of a title that has a recording timeline, another new feature that neatly arranges all of the clips recorded from in-game events in chronological order. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Valve’s Deadlock adopt the timeline feature at some point in its quiet development.

The recording features work with any game, including non-Steam titles that are added to its interface. So, if you’re someone who adds Epic Games Store titles to Steam, or perhaps even emulated games, you should be able to capture footage. With the latest Steam update installed on PC and Steam Deck, you’ll be able to configure your game recording settings as you please.

Despite being over 20 years old, new and interesting Steam features keep coming out. One of last year’s coolest additions was the ability to take notes in a window when you hit Shift + Tab in-game to see the Steam overlay. It’s a great way to jot down things you might forget.