Those who’ve been using Valve’s Steam gaming client will know that it’s filled to the gills with social features, and though not all of them are all that useful, they are nice to have. Video sharing, though, hasn’t been stellar, and the new Steam Game Recording aims to fix this.
Having just entered its public beta testing build, Steam Game Recording is trying to be the single most feature-rich and comprehensive gaming video sharing platform we’ve seen yet. Far from a simple footage capture solution, Game Recording comes with the usual suite of game integration options that includes – but is not limited to – gameplay timelines, event markers, and record-in-background options. Oh, and wouldn’t you know it, Game Recording also works on the Steam Deck, and quite well at that, too.
Steam Game Recording promises the ultimate gaming capture solution, both at home and on the go
It’s still early days, to be sure, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a gaming capture option or feature that’s not already fully integrated into the Steam Game Recording beta. It’s a delightfully simple system, too: just specify the storage limits you want the system to work with, and the background recorder will begin capturing gameplay footage whenever you play. This ensures that you don’t ever miss out on a snazzy clip, allowing you to quickly and easily edit it for further sharing, should you choose to do so.
After the allocated storage is full (which is bound to happen quickly no matter what), Game Recording will automatically overwrite the oldest footage in the folder, which should reduce the chances of losing valuable and exciting footage willy-nilly. If automatic recording isn’t your forte, though, you can always fall back upon the usual press-to-record option.
Game markers, though, are the really fascinating bit. These need to be integrated into a game by the developer, but after the feature is set up, any captured footage plays out on a precisely annotated timeline, allowing you to quickly move from one event to the other without wasting time watching uninteresting gameplay. Player deaths, objective completions, and boss encounters are just some examples of how a developer might choose to set up markers.
Those who know how finicky game capture systems can be will be particularly impressed by Steam Game Recording’s performance. Even on the relatively humble Steam Deck, it doesn’t seem like there’s a meaningful performance malus for Game Recording to work in the background, which is phenomenal news indeed.
As Steam Game Recording has only just entered its first public beta, it’s only a matter of time until the first problems are uncovered and reported to Valve. That’s the nature of these things, though, and there’s immense potential in the feature’s powerful toolset, if Valve ends up sticking with it.
Just a few months back, we received a rework of the Steam Family Sharing feature, which added long-requested functionality and a massive assortment of quality-of-life improvements. Family Sharing, too, is still in public beta, but having access to it appears to automatically grant you access to the new Game Recording feature, which is neat.
