Valve has introduced the Steam Family feature, allowing up to 6 family members to play games together while keeping separate profiles, game saves, and achievements.
The centralized game library where everyone’s games are gathered is called the Shared Library. Family members can play games owned by other members, with the ability to play simultaneously based on the number of game copies in the household.
However, developers must opt-in for their games to support Family Sharing. Currently, there are around 61,436 supported games, including popular titles like Baldur’s Gate 3, Palworld, Helldivers 2, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077, and Elden Ring.
Steam now allows adult members to immediately join a household with a cooldown period of 1 year before moving out or rejoining. Child members require adult approval to enter and leave the household.
Additionally, Steam has added Parental Control features for parents to manage their children’s Steam usage, restricting access to inappropriate content, limiting store purchases, chat functionalities, playtime hours, and providing playtime statistics.
Previously, Steam had separate features known as Family Sharing and Family View, which have now been merged into a unified feature under the name Steam Family.
Steam Family is currently in beta status, requiring clients to switch to the Beta version in the settings menu if interested.
TLDR: Valve introduces Steam Family feature for up to 6 family members to play games together with separate profiles. Developers must opt-in for games to support Family Sharing. Parental Control features added for managing children’s Steam usage. Steam merges Family Sharing and Family View into Steam Family, currently in beta.
Leave a Comment