Valve announced that Steam will no longer support Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 starting on January 1, 2024. Afterward, the Steam client won’t run on those versions of Windows anymore.
“In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows,” Valve explained in a statement.
Valve continued: “The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.”
According to the February 2023’s Steam hardware and software survey, users who use these older operating systems make up a tiny fraction of total users. Windows 7 users consist of only 1.52% while Windows 8 users are 0.34%, making them a whopping total of 1.86% of Steam’s user base.
Coincidentally, Epic announced earlier this month that it would be dropping Fortnite support for Windows 7 and 8. If users still want to play Fortnite on PC via the Epic Games Store client or continue using the Steam client, then they’ll have to eventually upgrade to Windows 10 or 11.
In IGN’s Windows 11 review, we said, “Windows 11 looks fantastic, but that's where the excitement stops. There aren't any immediately apparent gaming improvements, and it's not clear exactly when we'll see them. Combine the nearly identical performance, and the fact that some features like the refreshed Microsoft Store are making their way to Windows 10 soon, and there's very little incentive to rush out and upgrade right now.”
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He's been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
