As of writing, there are currently 74883 games available to play on Steam. Of those games, 72013 are available in English which amounts to just over 96%. In saying that, English speakers have it pretty good when it comes to finding games available in their language on the popular video game marketplace.
Thankfully, a new update to Steam’s search system has made it so that over 100 different languages can be searched for in their system, meaning that those who speak languages other than English can easily find games that support their language. However, it goes a little bit deeper than that, so let’s take a look.
In the new Steam update, announced and implemented this morning, there are two main additions to Steam that provide a better experience for finding games in your language.
New Steam language preferences
In the new and improved Language Preferences section of Steam, there are three main options you can change: Primary Language, Secondary Languages, and Additional Game Content. For your Primary Language, you can choose from 28 different languages which will determine what language the Steam UI is in, as well as content across the Steam store and community appearing in said language.
The Secondary Languages preference allows for extra content to be shown to you in additional languages based on your choice and will show you store page descriptions and user reviews in these secondary languages if they are not available in your primary language. They include the same 28 languages available in the Primary Language category, as well as the addition of Arabic.
Additional Game Content Languages include a larger and more in-depth variety of languages than Primary and Secondary but these languages are also not supported by the Steam UI. However, choosing from these options allows for games that are in these languages to be recommended to you, as well as appear in searches.
Filtering searches by language
Speaking of searching, there’s also a new option in the Steam search filters, where you can narrow your search by languages. While your selected language will always appear first, you can still look for games in specific languages beyond that.
The Steam Discovery Queue has also been swayed by this, as games that are available in your selected languages will be more likely to appear in the queue. Very cool!
While I am an absolute pleb when it comes to languages (I only know very broken Croatian to keep my Baba happy), this is a really cool feature for those who feel that finding a game in their language has been a struggle. As well as that, those who are multilingual will have a plethora of games to sift through.
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