Add option to disable ALL achievement notifications without disabling Overlay

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8 January, 2013

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ND 1 Jul, 2023 @ 7:41am

Add option to disable ALL achievement notifications without disabling Overlay

The Steam client needs an option to disable ALL achievement notifications. Currently the ONLY way to not get these incredibly annoying pop-ups interrupting your game is to completely disable the Steam Overlay. You can do that Steam-wide or per-game, but the latter means you have to micro-manage this setting for every game in your library if you don't want to see these stupid pop-ups. Needless to say, this is NOT a good option because disabling the Overlay ALSO disables taking screenshots, chatting with friends and other useful features.

How is it possible that Steam *still* does not have a simple option to disable Achievement notifications?! Even the system that popularized this gamification garbage, Xbox, has a dedicated setting[www.howtogeek.com] to disable this type of notification. Playstation has this option too[seekingtech.com]. GOG Galaxy even lets you disable the achievement system completely, not just the notifications.

Why does Steam not have this?

Following GOG's example or something like it would be great, though I'd settle for a basic notification option. The best place to put it I think would be Steam Settings > In Game and then having a section for achievement options like you do for screenshots.

Why disable achievements? Many (perhaps even most) like to be *immersed* in games and their stories or challenges and don't want their experience interrupted by meaningless gamification pop-ups. I don't need a virtual pat on the back every time I make incremental progress. Imagine if movies or books had obnoxious pop-ups to let you know you finished a chapter or scene... it would be considered vandalism. Yet for games this is somehow left unquestioned and considered a 'standard' feature.

Last edited by ND; 16 Jul, 2023 @ 3:51am

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Showing 1-15 of 16 comments

Soma 15 Jul, 2023 @ 10:50am

They finally added this in the latest update, it's in the settings notification tab, the only downside is that the screenshot notifications are gone too.

Last edited by Soma; 15 Jul, 2023 @ 10:51am

ND 15 Jul, 2023 @ 3:22pm

It would be nice to have more granular options, one for each type of notification.

Yolo$wagger 9 Dec, 2023 @ 5:54pm

Originally posted by Soma:
They finally added this in the latest update, it's in the settings notification tab, the only downside is that the screenshot notifications are gone too.

You just helped out a random dude on the internet. Thank you, man!

Definitely not a Rat 26 Jan @ 5:40am

Originally posted by Soma:
They finally added this in the latest update, it's in the settings notification tab, the only downside is that the screenshot notifications are gone too.

That is either not true or got removed again. You can turn off all kinds of notifications but not the archievement ones.
Can only turn of their sound, not the notification itself, sadly.

SixelAlexiS 17 Feb @ 1:20pm

Originally posted by Xantusmaximus:
Originally posted by Soma:
They finally added this in the latest update, it's in the settings notification tab, the only downside is that the screenshot notifications are gone too.
That is either not true or got removed again. You can turn off all kinds of notifications but not the archievement ones.
Can only turn of their sound, not the notification itself, sadly.

Yeah, I've even tried the "Show Notification Toasts..." > "When I'm not ingame" and they still appear.
Please Valve, it's 2024 and every other launcher and consoles makes you remove the achievement notifications and you put every single toggle but this...

ND 18 Feb @ 3:21am

There still doesn't seem to be dedicated option BUT I've had success with going into Settings > Notifications and setting the "Show Notification Toasts" option at the top to "Never".

This seems to block achievement pop-ups without disabling the Steam Overlay. However Valve still really needs to add a specific option for Achievement notifications, and indeed specific toggles for all types of notification so you can customize as you like.

Nearly all other platforms have this. It's baffling that Steam doesn't.

SixelAlexiS 18 Feb @ 8:56am

Originally posted by ND:
There still doesn't seem to be dedicated option BUT I've had success with going into Settings > Notifications and setting the "Show Notification Toasts" option at the top to "Never".

This seems to block achievement pop-ups without disabling the Steam Overlay. However Valve still really needs to add a specific option for Achievement notifications, and indeed specific toggles for all types of notification so you can customize as you like.

Nearly all other platforms have this. It's baffling that Steam doesn't.

Ok, I've tested "Never" and indeed it works, it hide the achievement notification, the sound as well, thank you!!!
It's clearly a bug that "When I'm not ingame" doesn't work since the description states how it's supposed to hide the Achievements as well.

So yeah, it's bugged and Steam NEED to put a separate setting for the Achievements alone, just like the Screenshots visual and audio notification in the "in-game" section of the settings.

BTW the fact that the screenshot notification isn't under "notification" is another UI hell, since with "Never" now I don't see the screenshot visual notification anymore since it gets priority over the "in-game" dedicated setting, while even if I remove all the audio notifications I will still hear the audio notification of the screenshot since the dedicated toggle under "in-game" is enabled.

It's really a mess.

M4D_MAXX_ 22 Feb @ 6:11pm

Are Steam Overlay and Shift+Tab Overlay 2 different one? Cause even with deactivated Overlay it still opens up. Set all Notifications to disable and still got it... i try now the "Never" Option and hope that works... thx

Yolo$wagger 27 Feb @ 9:52am

Steam -> Settings -> Notifications -> Show Notification Toasts... [Never]
"Play a sound when a notification toast is being displayed [OFF]

Only this setting has worked properly for me so far.

Haldi 12 Apr @ 12:39am

This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying...
So does that disable ALL Notifications?
What if my friends want to play a game and write me a message and i won't even notice it?

I simply don't want any annoying popups with stupid achievements when i play a singeplayer game.

#10

ND 12 Apr @ 7:23am

Agreed. That's why Steam needs more specific customizable notification options for this.

#11

cleric670 15 Jun @ 4:06pm

Doesn't work and Steam is broken, I have Notifications Toasts set to NEVER, I have global Steam Overlay set to DISABLED, RDR2 specific setting for Steam Overlay set to DISABLED, yet I'm still getting achievement notifications in RDR2...

The crap part is that RDR2 likes to CTD crash when you get an achievement notification due to R* janky code...

#12

ND 16 Jun @ 2:08am

Originally posted by cleric670:
yet I'm still getting achievement notifications in RDR2...

I'm fairly sure RDR achievements go through Rockstar's launcher, not Steam, so that might be why you're still getting them. I don't think Rockstar has an option to turn that off, though may be worth double checking. Try a non-Rockstar game to compare.

#13