Often Beta Testers of different Games and Softwares will stumble across some files that lead to a massive piece of news, digging through the latest update to try and find something new. That seems to have happened for some PC gaming Steam users. Posting to Github, SteamDB has revealed that it has uncovered assets in a recent beta update that point towards a fairly dramatic UI overhaul sometime in the future.
Upon diging like they do, filenames for the Images in the update refer to something refrenced as 'SteamU' which many people think that means means Steam Universal. Which is a good theory, Steam Universal? Does that mean universal across all devices? What does it mean?
SteamU: The Bold New Look
They show a new look for Steam, new navigation and search bars as well as a row of tabs across the top of the screen which clearly separate users’ collections of games, comics, apps, TV shows, movies, and music. The image above shows what appears to be the games tab where the user’s installed games appear as clickable tiles. There’s another row of games along the top of the page which are separate from the rest, the most likely explanation for which is that they’re the user’s most recently played titles.
There’s also another image which seems to depict some kind of hub. We imagine that once you select a title you’d be directed to its hub page where it appears you’ll be able to access information about the game as well as details of your own progress and achievements within it.
The images are obviously a mock-up so don't go screaming it from the rooftops with excitement – these images could very well be extremely early and changeable concepts and any kind of UI change could be months or even years away. That said, considering its age and the amount of non-game content that’s now on Steam an interface redesign feels overdue. Perhaps tellingly, shortly after these assets were uncovered, Valve issued another beta update which removed the images. They are, however, still archived on GitHub for anyone looking to access them so if you find them, do send them on to us and we would LOVE to have a bit of a peak.