Instantly access to your favorite games on Steam, with thousands of games, exclusive deals, automatic game updates and other great perks. With Steam you can also join the Steam Community of PC gamers, join game groups, form clans, chat in-game and more.

Name a few great free games available on Steam...

We have two dedicated articles highlighting great titles available for free on Steam, but to name a few popular ones: Counter-Strike, Apex Legends, Lost Ark, PUBG, Destiny 2, War Thunder, Dota 2, Warframe, Team Fortress 2, and World of Warships.

Why is Steam so popular?

Steam was originally created by Half-Life developer Valve as a platform to update their games and distribute them digitally back in 2003. The service had a slow start, at the time facing competition from brick and mortar stores and physical game copies, but it didn't take long until it became the top digital distribution platform for PC gamers. Over the years Valve has successfully grown a platform that hosts games from most other publishers, studios, and game creators in general.

Is there anything better than Steam?

Steam remains the biggest PC gaming platform, but there are good alternatives like the Epic Games Store, GOG Galaxy, Uplay, Origin and Itch.io.

Does Steam have Fortnite?

Fortnite is developed by Epic Games, who have their own competing platform, so Fortnite is not on Steam.

Is there a monthly fee for Steam?

Absolutely not. Steam is free and the platform makes money through the sale of games and other digital content.

How do I install Steam Beta?

Opting in to the Steam Beta Client lets you use the latest features before they're released. Follow these instructions to participate in the beta:

  • With Steam running, click on "Steam" in the upper left, then choose the "Settings" menu. (Preferences on Mac)
  • On the "Account" tab under "Beta Participation" click the "Change..." button.
  • Select the "Steam Beta Update" from the drop down list and click "OK".
  • You will be prompted to restart Steam, please select the "Restart Steam" button.

Create and Share Content

Gift your friends, trade items, and even create new content for games in the Steam Workshop. Help shape the future of your favorite games.

Entertainment Anywhere

Whether you're on a PC, Mac, Linux box, mobile device, or even your television, you can enjoy the benefits of Steam. Take the fun with you.

Available on PC, Mac, and Linux

We offer a catalog of PC, Mac, and Linux games, many of which support Steam Play so you can buy once and play anywhere, and Cross-Platform Multiplayer so you can play with all your friends, no matter where they log in.

What's New

A new Steam client has been released and will be automatically downloaded.

General

  • Improved controller hotplug detection for some third party devices.
  • Reduced steamwebhelper memory usage when launching games or switching to/from Big Picture Mode.
  • Fixed games failing to connect to the Steam process when the Steam process id contains certain values.
  • Fixed game preloads showing 0bps disk activity.
  • Fixed rare steamwebhelper crash when switching to/from Big Picture Mode.

Steam Overlay

  • Fixed links opened from chat window showing in desktop browser rather than overlay browser.

Big Picture Mode

  • Fixed pasting from on-screen keyboard.

Server Browser

  • Fixed bug causing bots to contribute to the player count.

Steam Input

  • Speculative Fix for rare Dualsense Edge gyroscope related bug.

Linux

  • Proton Voice Files speech synthesis data will now be automatically installed when necessary.
  • Fixed game recordings containing a green bar on the right side of the image when using HEVC encoding on AMD systems if the game window width was not a multiple of 64.
  • Fixed Game Recording and Remote Play video streams showing green frames when capturing Vulkan games on Intel GPUs.

Steamworks API

  • GameOverlayActivated_t is now sent to the current VR app when the SteamVR Dashboard is opened or closed.

VR

  • Fix a case where the Steam Link VR client would get a key mismatch error on stream start.
  • Steam will no longer occasionally reload itself when SteamVR closes.