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You can now filter Steam reviews by playtime

15,000 hours played - "it's ok"

That Steam user review that lists thousands of hours played and ultimately says “it’s okay” was funny the first time, but by now that particular gag has worn pretty thin. Luckily, Steam has just implemented a new set of filtering tools to let you narrow down opinions by how long users have played the game, and there are some other improvements around playtime tracking, too.

Alongside the existing review sort tools, you’ll find a dropdown marked ‘playtime.’ You can choose minimums like one hour, ten hours, or 100 hours, or run a custom filter for anything up to triple digit hour counts. So if you feel a gaming opinion is only valid from someone who has played precisely 16 to 34 hours, for example, you can get exactly those sorts of reviews.

The new filter settings in particular are labeled as a Steam Labs feature, so it seems Valve has plans to use that experimental branding for certain features that are directly implemented into the store. Other Steam Labs features for the store – like the new search – have required you to opt-in for access. Not so here.

You’ll also now find two separate playtime counts attached to every review. One shows the total time that player has spent with the game overall, while the other shows the count at the time the review was published. That means you can now properly distinguish a first-hour negative review when that player has gone on to play a dozen more.

Valve’s starting to make more frequent adjustments to the Steam store, so don’t be surprised if you find more little improvements next time you log on.