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Steam has just received a major update from Valve this week with a big UI overhaul, and this includes a newly redesigned in-game overlay that lets pin videos to the screen. The key point about this feature add, is that the videos are pinned to the screen and visible while in-game. Not just visible when the overlay is up.
If you aren’t sure why this is immediately a huge deal, there’s multiple use cases. Say you’re playing a game that has challenging or puzzling content. You aren’t sure how to get past a specific boss or checkpoint. Just hit the shift + tab buttons to bring up the overlay, open the web browser, and find a video guide. You can then pin this guide to the screen so it overlays on top of your game UI. Then continue playing as normal.
You could also use this to watch tv and movies while you play a more casual game. If it’s a game where you can split your attention. The only thing here is not all streaming sites will be supported. Both Netflix and Max for instance won’t work on the Steam browser. Sites like Crunchyroll and Apple TV+ however play video just fine. The only downside to this is you still have to open the overlay anytime you want to pause a video. As it seems there’s no hotkey to pause these pinned videos while in-game.
The Steam update doesn’t just let you pin videos
You can pin notes too! This might be more useful for some players. Particularly those that play games with massive maps and lots to explore. In this case, you could easily make a note that keeps you apprised of the location of important items on the map. Maybe you’re not ready to get said items just yet. But you also don’t want to forget where they are. Now you can simply open the overlay, create a note, then pin it. And it’ll stay on-screen for as long as you keep it there.
You can even adjust the opacity if you don’t want the videos or notes to be too obtrusive to your game experience. Which is a nice attention to detail if you like more immersive gameplay.
There’s loads of other small quality of life changes
Pinned notes and videos aren’t the only changes with this update. There’s actually quite a lot more going on with it. Some of it more subtle and behind the scenes. Some of it not really user-facing at all.
Hopping back to the in-game overlay, the redesign now makes use of a nifty bottom nav bar with icons for all the features. Including the browser, notes, and more. Valve has also made notifications more robust. The notification icon is now a bell instead of an envelope. The bell only lights up green when “there’s truly something new for you,” Valve says. With the tray being limited to “new” notifications specifically.
Although there is a “view” all page if you want to view your notification history. Additionally, there’s lots of little visual tweaks and adjustments that just make Steam more pleasing to look at. The update started rolling out on June 14. But if you haven’t seen it update on its own yet, you can download it manually. Simply click on the Steam icon in the top left corner, then click on “check for Steam client update.” You should see a window pop up that tells you to restart Steam to download and install the update.