Steam overhauls wishlists and makes gifting games much easier

Valve has rolled out a major update to Steam that makes it easier to organize wishlists and buy games as gifts for friends.

The new update introduces custom wishlist categories alongside a revamped gifting system with guest checkout, email delivery, and cross-region purchases.

The update combines a range of quality-of-life improvements aimed at simplifying how to discover, organize, and share games, while also removing several long-standing barriers to gifting on the platform.

Steam adds wishlist categories and easier gifting

The biggest addition is the ability to create custom categories within Steam wishlists. Players can now sort games into personalized groups, whether that’s titles for an upcoming sale, controller-friendly games, or even games they want to receive as gifts.

Steam

Users can also filter wishlists by category, search more easily with autocomplete, receive notifications when demos become available, and share links to specific wishlist categories instead of their entire list.

Shared wishlist links can even remain viewable if a wishlist is set to private, with owners able to revoke access at any time.

Valve says the wishlist improvements were designed to work alongside a major overhaul of Steam’s gifting system.

Steam

Players can now buy games as gifts through guest checkout, meaning a Steam account is no longer required to purchase a game for someone else. Games can also be sent directly to an email address instead of requiring the sender to know the recipient’s Steam account.

The update also improves cross-region gifting by automatically calculating the correct regional price at checkout, removing the need to manually send digital gift cards for friends in different pricing regions.

Combined with the new wishlist sharing features, friends and family can now buy games directly from a shared wishlist, even if they don’t use Steam themselves.