Steam has announced its future plans for the new soundtrack feature on its website. Steam is aware that the old soundtrack feature had several flaws. If a gamer wanted to listen to the soundtrack of a game, they had to own the game. Soundtracks were treated as Add-on DLC for years.
Now, players can purchase soundtracks separately. Steam has changed the way music is organized on the Steam launcher as well.
Instead of Add-on DLC, soundtracks now have a new category called “Soundtrack.” There is a special Music director where all soundtracks will be located, instead of having to look it up according to the game.
Through a new partner site, developers and publishers can upload and manage music uploads. Developers who don’t sell titles on Steam will now be able to sell their soundtracks on the platform.
Steam has also outlined steps that existing publishers can take to add soundtracks. This includes an automatic tool that handles the conversion of soundtracks as DLC to the “Soundtrack” category.
There is a detailed guide on how publishers and developers can transfer their new or existing platforms onto Steam to fully utilize the new Soundtrack category.
Along with the new Soundtrack feature comes new functionality. Soundtracks can support multiple quality levels and different audio file types. Steam does require that all soundtracks come with standard MP3s, but can include other file types. “The Steam client currently supports playback of MP3, FLAC, M4A, and WAV files.” states the Steam Soundtrack documentation.
Gamers can now use the new interface to control song playback. The interface is very minimal for now and will support more features in the future. Also included are music information, such as album art and any other details that developers and publishers wish to add.
The official release of the new Category section included a major sale on Steam. The digital platform last held a major soundtrack sale in honor of Valentine’s Day. Now that users can purchase soundtracks alone, this may mean that more sales focusing on soundtracks are likely in the future.
Steam also announced in their 2020 “Looking Ahead” post that they are working on new functionality to support gaming soundtracks, but didn’t include a roadmap of updates.
Steam’s new soundtrack feature is available now.
