Rhiannon (she/her) is the Deputy News Lead and Chief Reporter at TheGamer. You may have heard her on the BBC or read her words at TechRadar Gaming and TechRaptor. She won MCV’s Journalism Impact for Women in Games in 2025.
At TheGamer, you will often find her chatting to game developers, writers, and actors about their crafts. This includes a deep dive into Cyberpunk 2077’s narrative, and a series on the making of the Fable trilogy.
She also follows industrial action and existential threats to its workers, particularly the use of generative AI. As part of this, she’s explored how AI Darth Vader sets a dangerous precedent, and was one of the first reporters to look into generative AI dating companions.
It’s not just you: Steam is down. Right now, many of us are unable to access Steam through the website, and those who can get into the app say they can only access offline features.
Valve has not explained what’s going on at the time of writing, so it’s unclear how long these issues will persist. It couldn’t have come at a much worse time, either, as the storefront is currently in the midst of its annual winter sale, and with Christmas tomorrow, many of us will probably have some spending to do or games to redeem.
Yep, Steam Is Down
Reports are fairly consistent, with Steam users completely unable to access the store. It also seems to be affecting the ability to access games on Steam Deck, so you might be out of luck if you were hoping to get cosy and play something on the couch this evening.
On PC, the app is accessible, but the store pages are not. However, some say that they are able to install the games that they already have, so at least there’s that. I would just be cautious if you rely on the cloud for your save files, as you might have trouble saving and loading while this is going on.
As for the web page, that is completely inaccessible on my end. It sounds like there are issues with the mobile app too, so it’s a wide-reaching issue.
We’re still waiting on an update from Valve. Since it’s the holiday season, there might be a bit of a delay on a fix being rolled out. For now, we can just wait and hope that it’s back up soon. Or get started on the Christmas dinner. I hear some people do that in advance. Or pop down the pub, which is what I will be doing as soon as I’m out for the night.
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Of course, there are some out there who are hoping that Steam is down because Half-Life 3 is about to shadowdrop. With that said, the current rumour is that it will be a launch title for the Steam Machine. I sincerely hope that is the case, or one of us will be writing up that news on the pints.
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