Steam rolls out built-in game recording feature

Valve introduced Steam Game Recording a few months ago as an alternative to traditional game capture software or applications from graphics companies like AMD and Nvidia. Today, this feature transitions out of beta and becomes available for all Steam games, allowing users to create and share gameplay footage that runs in the background so you don’t miss anything important.

You can now easily record your gameplay on PC directly through Steam. By default, recordings are saved to the C: drive, so make sure to specify a different file location in the settings if you wish to change that.

Steam game recording will automatically capture footage at the resolution your game is currently playing, but you can adjust the quality settings to manage storage space if necessary. You can also customize the duration and quality for each game, as well as select a "Do Not Record" option. For instance, two hours of 4K capture at 60FPS can consume up to 40GB of storage.

Certain games feature official support for timeline and event markers, which record significant events like kills automatically, while facilitating easy removal of time spent in menus and lobbies from clips. It remains unclear how many non-Valve titles besides Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 will feature this Timeline-enhanced capability, but there is an SDK and API provided for third-party developers to incorporate it into their games.

The native Steam Game Recording tools enable players to capture gameplay either by using background recording for quick highlight clips or by recording manually. There are options to create shortcuts for starting and stopping recordings, as well as a clip shortcut that captures the last 30 seconds of gameplay, which you can also configure to lengthen the capture time.

Through the Steam Overlay, Valve provides a replay feature that allows users to rewind and scrub through their recent recordings to review earlier moments in their games. For those looking to edit their recorded clips, Valve offers built-in editing tools accessible in the new Recordings and Screenshots interface on Steam.

These features are also available for the Steam Deck, and any captured clips can be shared directly on Steam Community pages.

And as always, remember to use our comparison tool to find the best deal for your next favorite game.