Valve make adjustments to Steam tags, and they settled the Vampire Survivor-like argument with Bullet Heaven

Valve announced a whole bunch of changes to Steam tags with plenty removed and added, along with settling the score on what to call Vampire Survivor-likes.

They said:

"Today we've made some changes to the set of official store tags available on Steam, adding 17 new tags, removing 28, and merging/updating a handful of others. These changes are made with the goal of helping players identify the games that best fit their interests, and helping Steam generate appropriate recommendations.

Each year, we typically add a few new tags based on community feedback, but it has been a while since we last did so (Most recently in 2024 when we added Dice, Dwarf, Boomer Shooter, and Elf tags). In the time since, we've built up a list of tags to add, remove, and update."

The new tags are:

• Bullet Heaven - The opposite of Bullet Hell; Focus on upgrades while automatically attacking hordes of enemies
• Desktop Companion - Games that only use part of your screen and keep you company while you do other things
• Organizing - Tidy up, de-clutter, or unpack, carefully placing items in virtual spaces
• Cleaning - Satisfying removal of grime and dirt from stuff
• Decorating - Creative placement of furniture and other objects
• Wuxia - Historical fantasy adventure featuring martial arts, competing sects, and inner qi
• Xianxia - Fantasy adventure focused on cultivating supernatural powers and strength
• Falling Blocks - Arranging, rotating, and placing blocks from above
• Espionage - Spying or secretly securing valuable intel
• Samurai - Japanese warriors best known for katanas, loyalty, and self-discipline
• Zoo - Care for and display a park full of wild animals
• Wolves - Also known as Canis Lupus
• Capybaras - The largest and possibly most adorable rodent species
• Animals - Cute and furry, or large and terrifying and everything in between
• Cult - Small groups with extreme devotion to a person, thing, or belief
• Poker - Draw, bet, and bluff
• Language Learning - Learning and teaching new languages

This firmly settles the argument on what to call the games inspired by Vampire Survivor that exploded on Steam. I wrote back in December 2025 here on GamingOnLinux that one developer of a popular version had run a poll and settled on Bullet Heaven, and other developers have since jumped in to use the same so it's nice to see that argument sorted more firmly now. It's pretty hard to go against Steam once a category is there - so might as well be the true official category now.

We have so many in that now genre it's nuts. My most recent favourite being TerraTech Legion. But there's so many other good picks like Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, Megabonk, Yet Another Zombie Survivors, Deadly Days: Roadtrip, Nautical Survival and many other total gems.

Valve also removed a bunch of tags as well:

• 3D Vision
• Ambient
• America
• Blood
• Crowdfunded
• Cult Classic
• Documentary
• Drama
• Dungeons & Dragons
• Electronic
• Experience
• Feature Film
• Foreign
• GameMaker
• Games Workshop
• Illuminati
• Kickstarter
• LEGO
• Masterpiece
• Mature
• Movie
• Narration
• NSFW
• Roguevania
• RPGMaker
• Warhammer 40K
• Web Publishing
• Well-Written

And some that were modified:

• "Clicker" has been renamed into "Incremental" to capture the broader essence of games that focus on numbers going up.
• "Conversation" has been renamed to "Dialogue Heavy" for clarity
• We've made a few tags plural to match other tags: Dogs, Foxes, Vampires, Elves, Dwarves, and Assassins
• "Pool" was humorously applied to games with a swimming pool, so we've renamed this to "Billiards", which is the overarching term for all games played with cue sticks anyway
• Merging "Jet" into "Flight", as the term "Jet" was not unique enough.
• Merging "Unforgiving" into "Difficult" since these terms mostly overlap in usage and intent

What do you think to all these changes? Any you're really happy with? Any you're not happy with? Leave a comment and let us know.