Steam Beta makes game invites simpler on SteamOS / Big Picture Mode

27 Oct 2026 at 8:43 am UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand

Valve released the latest Steam Beta for all supported platforms, with the October 26th update finally making game invites easier.

No more going right into a chat with someone on SteamOS / Big Picture Mode and having to scroll to the invite, now there's a dedicated widget for it. This should make things smoother overall, and as someone gaming a lot on my Steam Machine - it was a bit of a nuisance. Lovely to see Valve work towards making little accessibility improvements like this.

Key Changes - All Platforms

Steam Input

• Added support for GameInput v4.

Remote Play

• Start streaming faster when connecting to a local computer.
• Fixed the "..." button on the Steam Controller not being passed through to the remote side.

Linux

• Fixed a crash when resuming from suspend.

Big Picture Mode

• Updated the styling of the chat tab to better convey focus states.
• Game invites from friends now have a dedicated widget in the chat window above the text entry, instead of having to navigate to the exact message in the chat history window. Individual invites from friends in a group also show in the group chat window instead of having to navigate to the individual friend's 1-1 chat tab to accept.
• Improved the group chat layout and fixed areas where gamepad navigation could get stuck.
• Friend chat message notifications will now be rolled up rather than sending one 2 second notification per message.
• Plumbed the per-friend voice chat levels to the friend context menu in BPM.

And from the Steam Deck / SteamOS client changelog these are specific to it:

Key Changes - Deck / SteamOS

• Fixed a crash when resuming from suspend.
• Added a workaround for updates occasionally hanging at 99%.

🌐 External Sources: steamcommunity.com, steamcommunity.com Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com. Tags: Steam Deck, Steam Frame, Steam Machine, SteamOS, Beta, Misc, Steam, Valve 1 Likes Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:Highlights from the Triple-I Initiative Showcase - October 2026 EditionSteamOS 0.4.2 Beta for Steam Frame brings streaming improvementsNVIDIA driver 615.78.08 released for Linux, notes a new feature to help VKD3D-Proton performanceValve fix Zero Company crashing on Steam Machine with the latest major game update All posts need to follow our rules. Please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Readers can also email us for any issues or concerns.