You can now make video clips using Steam's built-in game recording feature, as an update rolls it out to all users

Steam's built-in game recording feature has been usable in beta since the summer, but it has now been properly launched for every user, following a client update to Steam yesterday. It's basically another method of capturing funny ragdoll glitches and posting them on the "lol-games-are-dumb" channel of your friend's Discord. Or for posting that flukey knife throw in Call Of Duty to Twitter, as if you really meant to kill the man from across the map all along. Or saving a clip for your personal records, like the footage of that time you yeeted an innocent citizen off the 50-foot wall of a castle town in Dragon's Dogma 2. We all do that, right? Right?

The Steam update is accompanied by a post explaining the ins and outs of the game recording feature. It can run in the background, constantly capturing your games for up to 2 hours (much like similar program OBS, or Nvidia's Shadowplay). You can then clip things out and spread the love of jank with some clicky share buttons. It works on Steam Deck, and you can also set recording limits for each game individually, devoting a longer window of recording time to your run in Hades 2, for instance, but asking it to never record that other game. You know, the one you shouldn't even have installed. What, you thought I wouldn't notice? Disgusting.

Our James tried out the recording tech during its beta and quite liked Valve's method when compared to other video capture programs. It's easy to find your mp4 files, he says, and you can scrobble back through your footage instantly using the Steam overlay. If a game has special timeline features included, it'll show you icons above certain important moments, like boss fights and deaths.

"I employed this feature to replay my perishing at the hands of some knife-spamming Elden Ring bullshit merchant," said James, "quickly studying his moves in preparation for a more successful rematch. Neat!"

Meanwhile, I will be happy so long as it is less cantankerous than Nvidia's own capture method using GeForce Experience - the video grabber I had been using until it recently decided it doesn't want to record anything if there is even the slightest whiff of Spotify or YouTube running in the background. Awww, is da widdle video capchah softwah afwaid of an iddy bit of copywight infwingement? GROW UP, NVIDIA. Jesus.

Elsewhere in the client update post, Valve note that this new client won't work for users still sporting Windows 7 or 8 (plus some old versions of Mac too). Alongside that there are some fixes to Big Picture mode, controller input, and the remote play feature. But that's all very boring. Go yeet a dude and clip it.