Steam Updates Tag System To Make it Easier To Filter Through Games

Steam has changed the official tags you’ll find attached to games on Valve’s digital storefront.

Removing 28, adding 17, and merging and updating “a handful of other” tags, Valve said the changes come “with the goal of helping players identify the games that best fit their interests, and helping Steam generate more appropriate recommendations.”

“Tags help developers better describe their game to players, but also help Steam understand what kind of game it is and show it accordingly to players via recommendations,” the company wrote on a blog post. “Tags are also the foundation upon which each of the store hubs are built, allowing players to find all of the games tagged with their favorite genre, theme, style, or other relevant context.

“Tags can be applied to a game by the developer, by players with non-limited accounts, and also by Steam moderators. This means that a game’s tags can shift over time as more customers play the game and contribute their perspective on what tags are most relevant for each game. Over time, the types of games that exist and the way customers look at games changes too — so today, we have a list of changes to our current set of tags.”

Steam tags added in the May 2026 update:

Bullet Heaven – The opposite of Bullet Hell; Focus on upgrades while automatically attacking hordes of enemies
Desktop Companion – Games that only use part of your screen and keep you company while you do other things
Organizing – Tidy up, de-clutter, or unpack, carefully placing items in virtual spaces
Cleaning – Satisfying removal of grime and dirt from stuff
Decorating – Creative placement of furniture and other objects
Wuxia – Historical fantasy adventure featuring martial arts, competing sects, and inner qi
Xianxia – Fantasy adventure focused on cultivating supernatural powers and strength
Falling Blocks – Arranging, rotating, and placing blocks from above
Espionage – Spying or secretly securing valuable intel
Samurai – Japanese warriors best known for katanas, loyalty, and self-discipline
Zoo – Care for and display a park full of wild animals
Wolves – Also known as Canis Lupus
Capybaras – The largest and possibly most adorable rodent species
Animals – Cute and furry, or large and terrifying and everything in between
Cult – Small groups with extreme devotion to a person, thing, or belief
Poker – Draw, bet, and bluff
Language Learning – Learning and teaching new languages

Valve said that it doesn’t often remove tags from Steam, which is why it’s “built up quite a list.” “The set that we’ve removed today are done so because they no longer serve a good purpose for establishing connections between games or describing unique and useful elements of content in the game,” it explained. “Many of these tags have alternative options on Steam that better describe the content, and already have a high degree of overlap in application.” Tags that are subjective – Well-written, masterpiece – have also been ditched, along with any that apply to a specific IP, such as Lego and Warhammer 40,000.

Clicker has been renamed Incremental to capture the broader essence of games that focus on numbers going up, Conversation has been renamed Dialogue Heavy for clarity, and Steam has “made a few tags plural to match other tags,” including, Dogs, Foxes, Vampires, Elves, Dwarves, and Assassins.

“Pool was humorously applied to games with a swimming pool, so we’ve renamed this to Billiards, which is the overarching term for all games played with cue sticks anyway,” the company added. It’s also merged Jet into Flight, as the term Jet “was not unique enough,” and Unforgiving into Difficult since these terms “mostly overlap in usage and intent.”

“At least they added Falling Blocks as a tag for Tetris and similar games now,” said one fan of the changes on Reddit. “Using Puzzle to try to find that kind of game before was obnoxious, just about every game that had some kind of puzzle was listed.”

“There’s a grand total of one game with the Capybaras tag,” joked another. “And this might be the best marketing this game has ever received.” Another 13 have since joined the tag.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.