Valve has pushed a new update to its Steam client beta introducing big changes to how achievements work and how they're displayed. Developers can now create sets of achievements customized to their game, like mastering a specific character class or finishing a singleplayer campaign. Sets also distinguish base game achievements from separate DLC and seasonal sets.

Previously if you unlocked all achievements for a game you'd see a nice 'n' tidy 100% in your achievements list. But if that game got DLC with new achievements, that 100% would drop accordingly. I can understand why achievement heads would be annoyed by this: what if you have no intention of playing the DLC, but want to retain 100% completion bragging rights? This update fixes that, assuming devs use it.

It's a similar situation for seasonal achievements, which I can see working well with battle passes. The example Valve uses is a set called "Halloween Event Achievements" which are valid for a certain period and don't affect the achievement count of the base game. In other words: if you have the completionist itch but skip a season, it won't affect your base game stats.

All these changes have prompted a refresh of the achievements page. Most achievements info is now displayed on a single page: your progress towards overall completion, and your progress towards unlocking individual achievements.

I especially like that you can now directly compare achievements with up to three friends at once, which is what's being displayed at the bottom of the above image.

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