How to use the Steam Overlay

Just like most of the other gaming clients, Steam too has an in-game overlay, and trust me, it is convenient!

While most of the in-game overlays are highly resource-demanding, this results in reducing the game’s performance. The Steam overlay is very lightweight and has little to no performance effect on the game.

Steam brought a huge UI overhaul to the in-game overlay after the new Steam Client update release, along with new notification settings and pinning functionality. It is not as straightforward as the old one, so I bring you this guide on how to use the steam overlay in the best way possible.

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How to enable Steam Overlay

Navigate to Steam > Settings on your Steam client, then select “In Game” from the menu on the left.

Turn on “Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game.” Here, you can also change multiple other options, like your overlay shortcut key, if you need an in-game FPS counter, and, if yes, where you want it to be displayed and so much more.

When you’re in a game, you can simply press the overlay shortcut key to access the feature; by default, the shortcut is “shift+tab.”

Features of Steam Overlay

When you open the Steam in-game overlay, you can find around 14 options at the bottom of your screen. Let us quickly take a look at what they do:

Game Overview: You can find all the information you require regarding the game you are playing right here. You can view your past play sessions, friends who have recently joined the game, and friends who are now playing the game. The best guides available, the most recent news, and a “Players” page with a list of every player that is now playing with you.

Achievements: All of your achievements are listed, along with the ones you’ve finished and the work you have to put into the unfinished ones.

Notes: A simple feature to write notes that is very handy.

Timer: You can set a timer and it will remind you once the count reaches zero.

Guides: This will direct you to the currently playing game’s Steam community guides. All of the community-submitted guides to help with game learning are available here.

Discussions: Goes directly to the Steam community discussions page of the current game. Here you can talk about bugs and fixes, find new players to play with and so much more.

DLC: Takes you to the DLC store page for the current game. DLCs are additional downloadable content like premium maps, skins, etc.

Steam Workshop: This takes you to the Steam Workshop, where you can find community-submitted mods, maps, and all the fun stuff. There are many great features on the workshop, and you too can submit your artwork and mods here.

Screenshots: A list of all the screenshots you’ve taken can be found here.

Friends: Opens up the default Steam’s friends tab. Also, you can invite your friends, send them a message, or broadcast your game to them from here.

Web Browser: A simple, lightweight web browser that you can use without minimizing the game to use your regular browser.

Controller Settings: Steam has a separate option for setting up your controller, and this feature takes you there.

Settings: Opens up the basic Steam settings.

Minimize: Minimize all of the Steam in-game overlay features that you’ve opened.

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