Valve says Steam store reviews now take up to 12 business days

Valve says a significant increase in Steam store and page submissions has left it running behind on reviews, with waits now stretching to as long as 12 business days.¹

The company calls the lag modest and temporary. The figure it has long published is 3-5 business days, with a standing suggestion that developers leave at least seven in case a build needs fixes.¹²

Much of the delay, Valve says, is re-review work. It has updated the pre-release checklist so basic functional misses are less likely to bounce a build back into the queue.¹³

Seen it before: when the pile grows, the first patch is a longer form.

New steps include running the game through Steam for at least five minutes before submission. “Sometimes we review builds that have not ever been played through Steam,” Valve wrote, noting that launching an executable directly can hide install and launch problems players would hit.¹ Developers must also confirm achievements are ready and that common redistributables such as DirectX or Visual C++ are set so Steam can install them when needed.¹

The backlog has already cost dates. Studio Daimon submitted Food Devils on October 12 for an early access launch planned for November 3 and was still waiting; a later ticket marked urgent went unanswered, the studio said.²⁴ Publisher 2 Left Thumbs reported missing Wheel Make It’s planned launch by nearly two weeks after a review catch on one menu option that was not usable with a controller.²

Some developers blame a flood of low-effort AI titles. Coverage has pointed to October’s Steam Next Fest slate of 7,240 games—up 65.2 percent from June—and to figures showing AI disclosures on roughly half of recent releases, with October 2026 Steam launches near 4,000 against about 2,000 a year earlier.²⁴ Valve has not named AI as the cause. Its post sticks to volume and re-reviews.¹

PC Gamer reported the same admission; @pcgamer shared that write-up.⁵⁶ The queue pressure sits beside Valve’s other recent notes on AI copies on Steam and who is expected to outrun them.

What you should do: if you ship on Steam, plan on 12 business days, not three to five. Run the build inside Steam, finish the checklist, and do not count on a last-minute ticket to clear the path.

Valve says further improvements to the build review process are already in the works.¹

Our read: A longer wait window plus a tighter front door is the standard ops reply to volume—cut the easy fails first, promise tooling later. Whether 12 days holds depends on whether the checklist actually reduces re-reviews and whether submissions keep climbing. Valve has not said how it will measure success beyond fewer bounce-backs.

Footnotes

1. The Verge, “Valve is making changes to deal with a ‘significant increase’ in Steam game submissions”. Retrieved November 3, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. The Verge, “Indie games are missing launch dates because Steam is backed up”. Retrieved November 3, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Steamworks (Valve), “Updates to the Pre-Release Review Process”. Retrieved November 3, 2026. ↩

4. Rock Paper Shotgun, ““Steam’s review queue is clogged up by AI slop”: Salacious Fire Emblem-ish Food Devils gets a delay because its devs think Valve is inundated with genAI games”. Retrieved November 3, 2026. ↩ ↩²

5. PC Gamer, “Valve admits it’s ‘running behind’ on approving Steam games because it has to keep re-reviewing them, which surely has nothing to do with AI”. Retrieved November 3, 2026. ↩

6. X, “Posts on X from @pcgamer”. Retrieved November 3, 2026. ↩