The Steam store has received another upgrade. Valve"s slow but steady update process for the PC games store has brought a new video player this time, letting users check out the included trailers for games better than before thanks to improved "usability, quality, and bandwidth usage."
First off, users will see a new interface for the Steam player on store pages, offering easier access to the possible actions and better responsiveness. The UI will also adapt to whatever device is being used to access the store, be it a desktop PC, a handheld PC like the Steam Deck, a mobile device, or even Steam Big Picture Mode.
Preview images are also finally here, letting users mouse over (or finger over) the seek bar to see what"s happening at any stage in the video. The video quality will also dynamically change between 360p, 480p, 720p, and 1080p depending on the network conditions and video player size. Trailers with non-standard aspect ratios will also play with proper scaling and centering now.
"Thanks to a change in the underlying video technology, you should see fewer pauses and hitches when jumping forward or backward in a video," explains Valve in the announcement blog post. "You will also see seamless transitions when pressing that full-screen button."
Valve revealed that to update the streaming tech behind the videos, it had to go through and re-encode every trailer on the platform. This had amounted to around 400,000 files. However, the company had lost access to the original files of much older trailers, so until they can recover those, classic games (like Portal) will still sport lower-quality videos on the storefront.
Don"t forget that Valve is testing a complete redesign of the Steam store menu and search bar right now too. Find more details here.