How will Steam show reviewers' hardware?

Valve is trialling hardware‑aware reviews

Valve has begun testing a new option for Steam reviews that lets players include details about their PC hardware alongside their written impressions. The aim is to give readers immediate context when a review mentions performance issues — so other customers can quickly see whether a bad framerate or crash was likely caused by the game itself or by the reviewer’s rig.

What the feature does

• Adds an optional hardware snapshot to a review that lists components relevant to performance (for example, CPU, GPU, RAM, and whether the player used a Deck/handheld).
• Surfaces this information publicly with the review so shoppers can compare experiences from similar systems.

Why this matters

Including specs turns performance complaints into more useful data. Shoppers can filter for reviews written by people with similar setups to judge whether a problem will affect them. Developers and QA teams also benefit because aggregated reviews with hardware info can help identify whether a bug is widespread or tied to particular configurations.

Open questions

It’s still unclear how broadly Valve will roll out the feature, whether it will be opt‑in or enabled by default, and exactly how granular the captured specs will be. Privacy considerations and the accuracy of self‑reported setups are also factors to watch as the trial progresses. For now, the change is a targeted experiment that responds to the persistent problem of performance claims lacking useful technical context.