Valve is beta testing Steam Achievement Sets, a feature that lets developers group a game's achievements into collections.

In an announcement, the company said that games "live longer than ever, continuing to receive updates through new DLC, expansions, and seasons", but that achievements added with new content "can be hard to discover and can accidentally break the completion status of players who have already finished the game".

That's why developers can now specify the number of sets and the purpose of each "to match their game's specific needs", so one game might group its achievements into single-player and multiplayer groups, while another could use eight class-based sets. Players still unlock achievements as usual, and Steam then sorts what they've unlocked into the developer-created sets, which Valve says makes it "easier to see what you have completed and to find other related achievements you can unlock next".

Each set has its own progress bar, and completing one adds a "set complete" trophy to the player's profile. If new achievements are later added to a set, completion is "preserved".

Developers can also create new sets as a game grows, which Valve says makes it "easy for returning players to see what new things they can unlock, while also preserving their prior completion status until they play again".

There are two types of set. Base Game sets "contain achievements that can be earned by all players who play a game", with progress and trophies shown in blue, while DLC sets group achievements that can only be earned once additional content has been bought and are shown in purple.

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