For the first time since 2024, the Steam store tags are being updated. This includes 17 new tags, 28 removed tags, and several tags that are being updated.
Store tags on Steam let players sort through the Steam Store and find games based on their preferences, and it also helps Steam recommend games to the correct audience. Developers, Steam moderators, and players with non-limited accounts can add store tags, which means that a game’s tags can shift over time to better represent a title.
These revamped tags should also help with this. The 17 new tags offer brand-new ways to categorize games into the following:
- Bullet Heaven: the opposite of Bullet Hell, so players are automatically attacking swarms of enemies
- Desktop Companion: games that sit on the screen while you do other things
- Organizing: games focused on tidying or organizing spaces
- Cleaning: games focused on cleaning things
- Decorating: creative games focused on placing objects
- Wuxia: historical fantasy games with a focus on martial arts, inner qi, and competing sects
- Xianxia: fantasy adventure games that have supernatural powers and strengths
- Falling Blocks: games focused on arranging and placing blocks that fall down
- Espionage: games centered on spying or gaining intel in secret
- Samurai: games focused on Japanese warriors
- Zoo: games where you’re taking care of a park of wild animals
- Wolves: games with wolves
- Capybaras: games with capybaras
- Animals: games with animals, whether they’re cute and cuddly or terrifying
- Cult: games that feature small groups with an intense devotion to something
- Poker: games centered on poker games with betting
- Language Learning: games with a focus on learning a language
There were also 28 tags that were removed. Some of these were because of overlaps with other tags, while others were removed because they were too subjective. There were also several IP-specific tags that were removed, since IP’s generally have their own franchise pages or developer/publisher pages.
The removed tags are as follows: 3D Vision, Ambient, America, Blood, Crowdfunded, Cult Classic, Documentaly, Dungeons and Dragons, Electronic, Experience, Feature Film, Foreign, GameMaker, Games Workshop, Illuminati, Kickstarter, Lego, Masterpiece, Mature, Movie, Narration, NSFW, Roguevania, RPGMaker, Warhammer 40K, Web Publishing, and Well-Written.
Additionally, several tags have been changed a bit to better encompass what they mean. That includes the following:
- Clicker is now Incremental
- Conversation is now Dialogue Heavy
- Several singular-noun tags are now plural (Dogs, Foxes, Vampires, Elves, Dwarves, and Assassins)
- Pool is now Billiards
- Jet and Flight have been merged
- Unforgiving and Difficult have been merged
Steam also shared an FAQ about these changes and what they mean, along with fun stats about tags on Steam. For example, about 62% of the games on Steam are tagged as Singleplayer. Players can check those out here.
For more news on what’s going on with Steam, check out the Steam Store Home redesign being tested in beta and the new browsing features being tested in Steam Workshop.
