Language-specific review scores on Steam: who sees which score

Definitions

• Overall review score: the label calculated from all counted reviews in every language. Steam needs 10 reviews to show it.
• Language-specific review score: a label calculated only from reviews written in one language. It exists for a language once the game passes both thresholds.
• Primary language: the language a player picks in their Steam preferences. It sets the language of the Steam interface and store content, and since August 2025 it also decides which review score the player sees.
• Language breakdown: a link on the store page, See language breakdown, that lists each language's score and which score those shoppers see.

What Valve says

• The change applies to games with more than 2,000 publicly visible reviews and at least 200 written reviews in at least one language. Valve set these thresholds above the 10 reviews needed for the overall score to be confident in a language's score before showing it.
• Valve's reasons are that players in different regions can have very different experiences of the same game, for example through translation issues, cultural references or poor network connections.
• The language-specific score is on by default. A player who prefers the overall score based on all reviews can switch back in Store preferences.
• Some languages may therefore show a more positive score than the overall one and others a more negative score, for the same game.
• Language also affects visibility in general: Steam is more likely to show a game to players who speak a language the game supports.

Worked example: Pebblewick in five language groups

Illustrative inputs for Pebblewick, the fictional demo game by Hollow Fern Games, a year after launch: 2,400 reviews, 86.58% positive overall, which is Very Positive. The game passes the 2,000 total, so every language with at least 200 reviews gets its own score.

A shopper whose primary language is English sees Very Positive; one whose primary language is Simplified Chinese sees Mostly Positive. Russian has 150 reviews, under 200, so it has no language score yet; the store page's language breakdown shows which score those shoppers see.

The buffers differ even more than the labels. English can take 202 negative reviews in a row before dropping to Mostly Positive. Simplified Chinese sits exactly on its threshold: its buffer is 0, so the next negative review written in that language moves that score to Mixed, and reaching Very Positive, 80.00% with at least 50 reviews, would take 210 positive reviews in a row.

Supported languages and language scores are two separate things. The languages listed on the store page decide which speakers Steam is more likely to show the game to; the language score is what those speakers then see. A game that adds a language reaches a new group of players, and once that group has written 200 reviews and the game has more than 2,000 in all, it also gets its own label.

Valve's own examples of what opens such a gap are translation issues, cultural references and poor network connections, so the reviews written in the weaker language are the place to look for the cause.

When each language gets its own score

The 200-review floor is a fixed number, so the share of reviews a language needs falls as the game grows. Just past 2,000 reviews only languages with about a tenth of all reviews qualify; at larger totals, smaller language groups get their own score too.

For a game that supports several languages, this decides when a weaker translation starts to show up as its own label. Below the floor, the reviews still count toward the overall score.

Why scores differ between sources

• Which score is shown. Since August 2025 two people can see different labels on the same store page, depending on their primary language and their Store preferences.
• Which reviews count. Steam counts Steam purchases only. SteamDB's rating uses all purchase-type reviews, ignores the reader's language and pulls games with few reviews toward 50.00%.
• The overall score still exists. Valve describes the language score as the default view, with the overall score one setting away in Store preferences and listed in the language breakdown.
• Thresholds. A game under 2,000 public reviews, or a language under 200, shows only the overall score, so a tool that reports language scores for a small game is calculating its own figure, not Steam's.

Where to see this in your own data

The User reviews view lists the languages reviews are written in and filters the review feed by language, with translation, next to the store score, the score across all reviews and the buffer. Reviews refresh every 45 min on Indie and every 10 min on Studio and Publisher once the game is released.

The User reviews feature page linked below shows the view with the demo game.

Sources

• Steam News: Updates to user review scores based on language (18 August 2025) · checked November 1, 2026
• Steam News: Find games available in over 100 languages (1 November 2022) · checked November 1, 2026
• Steamworks: User reviews · checked November 1, 2026
• Steamworks: Visibility on Steam · checked November 1, 2026
• SteamDB: SteamDB rating · checked November 1, 2026