Steam is reportedly adding features to let you limit play time and hide games from your friends
There'll also be controls to let parents restrict purchases for children
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Steam is reportedly working on a feature that will let users seemingly hide games you're playing from other users.
Earlier today, SteamDB creator Pavil Djundik took to Twitter to claim new knowledge of a feature on the storefront from Valve. Apparently, the developer is working on a feature that will let users hide a game that they're playing, so their friends on Steam can't see them playing it.
Steam is working on allowing you to mark a game as private and hide it from your friends. pic.twitter.com/ngb74mJzHNNovember 8, 2023
"Now i can finally play hentai games without having to worry," one responder writes on Twitter, in a comment that we can confidently say we saw coming from a mile away. If you want to hide certain games from your friends for less nefarious reasons, then this news should appeal to you.
Last week though, the same SteamDB dataminer also claimed knowledge of several other features. New parental controls are also reportedly on the way for Steam users, meaning you'll be able to set daily playtime and purchase restrictions for your children. In the latter case, a child would have to request permission for a purchase from their parent.
Steam is working on new parental controls with addition of family groups.It will allow setting daily playtime restrictions.Children will be able to request purchases.November 1, 2023
These are all nice new features, even if Steam is yet to confirm their existence. They'd be following relatively hot on the heels of the internet tab overlay update for Steam, which launched earlier this year, finally giving players the ability to lay web browser pages over their Steam games while they ran in the background.
Head over to our guide on the best Steam games for a comprehensive list of the very best 25 titles you can play on the storefront right now.
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.


