Steam Tags Guide
Steam tags decide which browse pages, recommendation queues, and 'More Like This' rails your game lives on. Six rules for picking them, in priority order.
TL;DR. Six rules
- 1Use all 20 slots. Empty slots leave the algorithm guessing.
- 2Top 5 must be specific sub-genre, not 'Action' or 'Indie'.
- 3Add the visual style or art direction to the top 10.
- 4Add the mood or theme. Players browse on feeling.
- 5Match what 5–10 successful neighbours use, not just what feels right.
- 6Re-audit at launch with the player-supplied tags Steam adds.
Why specific beats broad
The 'Action' tag has tens of thousands of games attached. 'Indie' has hundreds of thousands. Telling Steam your game is 'Action' or 'Indie' is approximately the same as telling it nothing. Almost every game claims to be one or both. The matching value of a tag is inverse to how many games share it. A specific sub-genre tag with a few hundred games is enormously more useful for matching than a broad tag with a hundred thousand.
Generic vs specific
| Generic (avoid as top tag) | Specific (prefer) |
|---|---|
| Action | Roguelike Deckbuilder, Souls-like, Bullet Hell |
| Indie | Cosmic Horror, Cozy, Pixel Graphics |
| RPG | CRPG, Tactical RPG, Action RPG, Dungeon Crawler |
| Strategy | 4X, Auto Battler, Tower Defense, Real-Time Tactics |
| Adventure | Walking Simulator, Point & Click, Visual Novel |
| Singleplayer | Story Rich, Choices Matter, Narrative |
You can still include 'Action' or 'Indie' in slots 6-20 too. they're true and they don't hurt. Just don't waste your top 5 on them. The top 5 is your specificity budget.
The five tag categories
Steam's Tag Wizard organises tags into five categories. A strong 20-tag set has at least one entry in each.
| Category | What it captures | Example tags |
|---|---|---|
| Genres & sub-genres | What kind of game it is | Roguelike, RPG, Survival, FPS, Platformer |
| Visuals & viewpoints | How it looks and how the camera works | Pixel Graphics, 2D, First-Person, Top-Down, Stylized, Anime |
| Themes & moods | How it feels to play | Atmospheric, Cozy, Dark, Funny, Relaxing, Cute, Horror |
| Features & mechanics | What you do in it | Crafting, Base Building, Open World, Procedural Generation, Co-op |
| Player support | Who plays and how | Singleplayer, Multiplayer, PvP, PvE, Local Co-Op, Online Co-Op |
Source: Steam Tags documentation. Browse the live tag taxonomy at store.steampowered.com/tag/browse.
The top-5 strategy
The top 5 tags carry the most weight. Spend them deliberately:
- #1The single tag that best describes your sub-genre. The tag a player would type into search if they were looking for exactly your game.
- #2Your second-most-distinctive sub-genre or hybrid tag. If your game is a 'Roguelike Deckbuilder', this is the half you didn't pick at slot 1.
- #3The dominant visual or art direction tag. Pixel Graphics, Stylized, Anime, Hand-drawn, Voxel, etc.
- #4The dominant mood or theme tag. Atmospheric, Cozy, Dark, Funny, Cute, Horror.
- #5The most distinctive feature or mechanic tag. Crafting, Open World, Time Loop, Choices Matter. Whatever the player would write in a review they loved.
Slots 6–20 fill out the picture: secondary mechanics, player-support tags, broader genre tags. Don't leave any of them empty.
How to research tags
- 1Identify 5–10 successful games in your sub-genre. 'Successful' = at least 500 user reviews, ideally a mix of recent and established titles.
- 2Open each one's Steam page and scroll to the tag block. Note the top 10 tags on each.
- 3Tally the tags that appear across multiple neighbours. The ones that show up on 5+ of your 10 are non-negotiables. Every game in your space uses them.
- 4Add any tag that appears on 3+ neighbours' top 10. These are the high-signal tags for your sub-genre.
- 5Compare to your current set. Add what you're missing. Drop tags you have that no successful neighbour uses.
- 6Re-audit at launch. Steam adds player-supplied community tags after release. Those often catch signals the dev missed.
Common pitfalls
Top-5 dominated by generic tags
'Action, Adventure, Indie, Singleplayer, RPG' tells the algorithm nothing. Replace with specific sub-genres.
Tagging aspirationally
If your game isn't actually a Roguelike, don't tag Roguelike. Players who click in expecting one will leave reviews that punish you.
Leaving slots empty
Empty slots are wasted signal. Fill all 20.
Skipping mood/theme tags
Players browse on feeling more than mechanics. 'Atmospheric', 'Cozy', 'Dark' are not optional.
Never re-auditing
Tags drift over time as the genre's vocabulary shifts. A quarterly audit takes 15 minutes and catches real movement.
FAQ
How many Steam tags can I use?
Up to 20. Steam recommends using all 20 slots. Tags beyond the top 5 still contribute to discovery, but their weight tapers. The top 5 carry the most signal.
Do Steam tags affect SEO or visibility?
Tags affect Steam's internal discovery, not external SEO. Steam uses your tag set to decide which browse pages you appear on, which games to compare you to in 'More Like This', and which players to recommend you to in Discovery Queue. Tags don't directly drive Google traffic, but they do drive Steam-internal traffic, which is the larger funnel for most games.
Should I use 'Indie' as a Steam tag?
Use it if it applies, but don't put it in your top 5. The 'Indie' tag has hundreds of thousands of games in it. Steam can't usefully match a player to your game on that signal alone. Specific sub-genre tags ('Roguelike Deckbuilder', 'Cosmic Horror', 'Survival Crafting') do the work.
What are the most important Steam tags?
The most important tags are the ones that describe your game most specifically. The single highest-leverage tag is your sub-genre. The one a player would type into search if they were looking for exactly your game. After that: the visual style or art direction, the mood or theme, then the gameplay-feature tags (1-Player, Multiplayer, Co-op, etc.).
How do I research Steam tags?
Pull the top tags from 5–10 successful games in your sub-genre, ideally games with 500+ user reviews (so they've cleared the noise floor). Note which tags appear in their top 5 across all of them. Those are the high-signal tags for your sub-genre. Add any you've missed. Drop any of yours that no successful neighbour uses.
Can I change Steam tags after launch?
Yes. Tags are editable in Steamworks at any time. Steam takes a few days to re-propagate the change through discovery surfaces. Re-audit your tags after launch once you have community-supplied tags from real players. Those often surface signals you missed.
Do mood and theme tags matter on Steam?
More than most developers think. Tags like 'Atmospheric', 'Relaxing', 'Cute', 'Dark', 'Funny', 'Cozy', and 'Stylized' map onto how players actually browse. They search for a feeling more often than a feature. Use the mood/theme tags that genuinely describe your game; don't add ones that don't fit, but don't omit ones that do.
Should I add Singleplayer or Multiplayer as a top tag?
Only if it's the single most distinctive thing about your game. Most player-mode tags are too generic to belong in the top 5. They still belong somewhere in your 20, but a sub-genre tag will almost always do more work in the top slots.
Last reviewed: 2026-05-08. Sourced from Steam's official Steamworks documentation and the Steam Analyser scoring methodology.