Steam's New Faceted Browsing Makes It Easier To Find Discounted Games

Steam has received a new searching feature that makes it easier to find precisely what you're looking for in a game, including everything from the type of graphics to the general mood or theme, whether it's first- or third-person, and more. Called Faceted Browsing, the feature is intended to help find new games during the Winter Sale.

Steam is currently in the middle of its Winter Sale, the end-of-year discount period during which time you can get games on sale. Valve is working to make it easier for users to find the perfect game, the most significant change being faceted browsing.

With this, users can filter results as they explore the games that are for sale, increasingly selecting from a huge number of options to narrow down results. Once users click on one of the themes or genre pages, such as 'Action,' they'll have access to additional tools like shared tags, sub-genres, and similar.

Faceted browsing narrows down the results by filtering for games that meet specific 'wants' — players can, for example, filter for games that are realistic, in third-person, colorful, or cute (or all of them at the same time). Moods and themes are also covered, such as finding relaxing and funny games.

Valve notes that the themed Steam pages don't feature all of the games discounted under the Winter Sale that meet the user's filters; rather, it presents the most popular matches that are on sale. This new feature is part of Steam Labs Experiments.