Valve has admitted that the Steam review backlog now takes up to 12 business days to approve game builds — more than double the usual three to five business days — and independent developers are already missing launch dates because of the delay.
The Australia Did It case
The most detailed case is Australia Did It: End-of-the-World Railway Defense Business, a train-defense game co-developed by Rami Ismail, co-creator of the indie hit Nuclear Throne, with the studio Aesthetican Labs and published by Mystic Forge. According to Ismail, speaking to Eurogamer, the game entered the Steam review backlog on October 20, failed the November 5 review over a minor controller-input issue, and the team submitted the fix the same day. Since then, the team has waited without a meaningful reply from Valve, despite several follow-ups. The launch, scheduled for November 10, did not happen.
It is not an isolated case. The studio TwoMenGames was supposed to release its debut game today, November 13, but the Steam review backlog did not clear the game in time: it removed the release date and brought back the demo while it waits. Eurogamer also names Monoii Studio and Studio Daimon among those affected.
What Valve says
In a Steamworks post earlier this month, Valve acknowledged a “significant increase” in store-page and build submissions for review in recent months and said it is working to scale the process. The company said it aims to test each build within three to five business days, but that the current wait in the Steam review backlog reaches 12 business days, largely because of the need to re-review games that fail checks. As part of the changes, Valve now requires developers to play the build through Steam for at least five minutes before submitting it.
Is AI to blame?
Some developers blame the congestion on a flood of games made with generative AI, which fail review and go back into the queue. That is the developers' assessment, not Valve's: the company does not blame AI for the delay and has made clear it will not ban AI-made games from Steam. For Ismail, the permissive stance could backfire, because bad actors can submit several cloned games a day — and Valve may end up adding fees, restrictions or requirements that hurt legitimate developers.
In practice, Valve's own advice is to ignore the seven-business-day buffer its documentation still suggests and submit games for review well ahead of launch. The company says more changes to the review process are on the way — and the Steam review backlog has become a scheduling risk for anyone planning to launch a game on the platform. The change arrives in the same month Valve moved Steam Achievement Sets out of beta, releasing the feature to all users.
Featured image: TechSpot.
Sources: TechSpot (based on Eurogamer reporting); GameSpot; CPSTesters.
Transparency: this article was produced with the help of artificial intelligence, based on cross-checking public posts and internet sources. We recommend consulting the original sources listed above to confirm the details.
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