Steam achievements are getting a huge overhaul, with separate sets for DLC and season passes, and an easy way to compare with friends

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 …