Valve just gave Steam wishlists and gifting a major quality-of-life upgrade
Right on the heels of launching its anticipated Steam Machine gaming system, Valve has rolled out a solid update for Steam that tackles two things players have wanted improved for a while: gifting and wishlists. Let’s break down what’s new.
How much easier is gifting now?
My favorite part of the update is that game gifting is getting a lot easier. Guest checkout used to only work for gift cards and hardware, but now it covers every game on Steam. If someone shares their wishlist with you, you can buy them a gift without ever creating an account.
Want to keep it a surprise instead? You can now send both games and gift cards straight to an email address, even if you don’t know the person’s Steam username. Just keep in mind that unclaimed gifts get refunded after 30 days, and the recipient needs to live in your country.
Cross-region gifting also got a much-needed fix. Buying for a friend in a pricier region used to mean manually figuring out local pricing for a gift card. Now Steam handles the conversion automatically at checkout, as long as your friend is already on your friends list.
What’s new for organizing your wishlist?
Steam has finally added custom categories, allowing you to sort and filter your wishlist items. You can filter by category with one click, add games to your favorite categories right from the store page, and even set notifications for specific categories only.
Valve says that search has become faster too, with autocomplete added for quicker results. Steam now flags when a wishlisted game has a demo available, and hovering over a game’s capsule shows a quick microtrailer.
Sharing is better as well. You can generate a link to your entire wishlist or just a filtered category, and friends can gift straight from that link without needing a Steam account themselves. Between the smarter wishlist tools and the simpler gifting options, buying and managing games just got a lot less complicated.
Microsoft is bringing original Xbox games to PC with backward compatibility
Four classic Xbox games just landed on PC.
Your old Xbox library just found a new home. Microsoft has launched Xbox Backward Compatibility on PC, letting you play classic original Xbox titles on Windows and handhelds for the very first time.
Which Xbox games can you play on PC?
Ghost Recon could finally be making the comeback fans have been asking for
If you're a Ghost Recon fan, you've probably gotten used to one thing over the past few years: waiting for rumors to turn into announcements, waiting for leaks to be acknowledged, waiting for Ubisoft to say... well, anything at all about the future of one of its biggest tactical shooter franchises. Thankfully, that silence finally seems to be ending.
Ubisoft has confirmed that it will share Ghost Recon news on August 6, when the series celebrates its 25th anniversary. The announcement arrived shortly after fresh leaks began circulating online, prompting the company to post a brief message telling fans that more information is just around the corner.
The AI game-dev boom has a dark side: fewer jobs for the people starting out
Solo creators are thriving with tools like Claude Code and Copilot, but entry-level game roles are disappearing.
AI is making it easier than ever for a single person to build a game. That sounds like a win for creativity, and in many ways, it absolutely is. But there is a catch. As generative AI tools help solo developers and small studios do more with fewer people, the same shift is making life tougher for writers, artists, concept creators, and junior programmers trying to break into the gaming industry.
AI is giving solo developers superpowers