Over 28,000 Steam users have expressed their desire for Valve to make a change that would separate a game’s achievements between the base game and any expansions. At present, Steam achievements do not allow for any separation between feats accomplished in a game’s base experience and any post-launch DLC, making achieving 100% on an ongoing title an uphill battle for users.
As the dominant PC gaming marketplace, Steam has added features over its two decades of continued service. In 2025 alone, Valve focused on releasing some quality-of-life adjustments that made Steam’s shopping experience more user-friendly on supported platforms. Last year, Steam allowed users to customize the appearance of their game library by allowing any game’s cover art and logo to be replaced by custom images. Additionally, a December 2025 change allowed Steam to alert users when a game in their cart is part of a bundle deal that could save them some cash. In short, the quality-of-life changes Steam made have been received positively by users.
Steam Users Have Until January 22 to Claim 2 Games Completely Free of Charge
Steam users can grab two free games for their libraries, but only until January 22.
Thousands of Steam Users Want Valve to Split Achievement Lists
Although Steam could stand to add more features in future updates, thousands of users took to social media to request a major change from Valve to one of Steam’s core functions. On the Steam subreddit, two separate posts from users Advanced-Climate-574 and LuraziusLive with eye-catching images each petitioned Valve to separate a game’s achievements between its base release and any DLC content that comes out afterward. The post by Reddit user Advanced-Climate-574 gained over 28,000 upvotes as of this writing. The point was further emphasized by the post from LuraziusLive, which showed a dinosaur zapping another with lightning as a way to signify how Steam users feel when a game update or expansion launch messes up their 100% achievement status.
Currently, Steam’s achievements for games that have expansions are a consolidated list, and getting all achievements with DLC and post-launch updates factored in is required for 100% completion of a specific game. However, some games have color-coded their achievement icons as a way to give players a clue on how to unlock them. Although Cyberpunk 2077‘s list of 57 achievements is consolidated between the base game and the Phantom Liberty expansion, all base game achievement icons are colored yellow and Phantom Liberty accomplishments are indicated with red icons. Should Valve go through with the achievement request, Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty would be split into separate achievement categories. However, players could reach 100% on Phantom Liberty with just 13 achievements in such a scenario.
Splitting Achievements By Expansion Could Save Steam Users From a Big Headache
Other users replied to the viral Reddit posts by stating that another reason for splitting up a game’s achievement list would be to safeguard against any features that could be removed in later updates. For example, the popular multiplayer bank heist title Payday 2 has some downloadable content that can no longer be purchased due to expired licenses. Ergo, a 100% achievement completion rate is currently impossible to accomplish in Payday 2. Other users suggested separating a game’s achievements by single-player and multiplayer modes, in the event that a game’s online servers are shut down over time.
With Steam reaching a remarkable concurrent player count of over 42 million users in January, any change to Valve’s PC gaming service would be immediately noticed. Given that Steam’s latest changes have been focused on improving the experience for its users, splitting up achievements by expansion, season, or game mode would make it significantly easier for diligent gamers and casual fans to chase that elusive 100% achievement completion rate on their favorite title. Although splitting up achievements would necessitate some extensive backend work, time will tell if Valve will offer users a way to make achievements easier to manage.
