Steam game build reviews are taking up to 12 business days

Valve says its review of game builds before release on Steam is currently taking up to 12 business days, compared with a usual target of three to five days. It has also added checks developers must complete on the release checklist before submitting a game.

Much of the delay comes from reviewing builds again, the company said in its announcement. Valve has seen a significant increase in store page and build review submissions in recent months. This is the pre-release review of a game build, not the reviews players leave on its store page.

One new requirement is to launch the game through Steam and run it for at least five minutes. Valve says this can catch launch settings or missing game files that a developer might overlook when starting the executable directly. The playtime must be from the past seven days or since the last build was uploaded, if that was more than seven days ago.

Developers must also classify at least five store images as gameplay screenshots. They can now add images of menus, concept art or cinematics as well, provided those are categorized correctly. Other checklist items cover required software components and checks for achievement settings and cloud saves where supported.