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Steam now hides foreign-language reviews from overall scores – here’s what that means for global users!

As announced by Steam on Monday, August 18, the new Valve update means the platform will now calculate game ratings based on language-specific reviews. This change is causing a stir among players and reviewers – but it might also prove problematic for games with a global fan base. What does this recent Steam review system update mean, and what can we expect?

Steam Overhauls Review System: Foreign Language Scores No Longer Count

To put it simply, the new update means that from now on, you’ll see a review score calculated based on user ratings written in your language. As we can see in Valve’s announcement, “This is part of our ongoing effort to ensure that Steam User Reviews are helping customers make informed decisions when considering the purchase of a new game.”

However, not all games will be affected by these changes – only those that have accumulated more than 2,000 publicly visible reviews and at least 200 written reviews in at least one language. Once a title meets this requirement, it receives a language-specific score. Fortunately, users will still have access to global game feedback and can even switch back to the previous system.

Steam Page for Black Myth Wukong

As Valve emphasizes, “We realize that whenever we make changes to User Reviews, we’re inviting some scrutiny into our motivations for making those changes. Maintaining trust in the system is crucial to us, so we’ve erred on the side of being as transparent as possible. To that end, we’ve built many features in User Reviews that can be enabled or disabled, letting you access the raw reviews in many different ways.”

But where exactly did the need to change the classic Steam language filter originate? Valve says they want to “help customers make informed decisions.” However, the recent overhaul of the current system has its roots in the Wuchang: Fallen Feathers review score being review-bombed by Chinese gamers after the game’s launch. With the recent patch released by the game’s developer, Leenzee, even more players are criticizing the title’s cultural impact. HELLDIVERS 2 also experienced review bombing, triggered by a translation error that made Chinese players feel unfairly treated by the game’s developers.

As you can see, Valve review bomb prevention aims to stop such situations. And since Chinese and English are the dominant languages in the Steam store, it’s clear that Valve wants to rebuild trust and enhance transparency for these two language communities and the global player base as a whole.