Valve has today unveiled its plans for an overhaul of its online distribution and networking service, Steam.

In addition to a significant presentation upgrade, Steam’s new functions include a longer friends list, better friend tracking and a newsfeed aggregator.

If that sounds like something you could get behind, you can opt-in to test a beta via your current version of Steam.

A list of major changes follows, for the minutiae, visit Steam’s webpage.

Major changes:

• Complete overhaul of Steam client UI design to improve discoverability of features and to better expose all the information related to games in your library
• Complete overhaul of in-game overlay UI design to create a richer in-game experience exposing context sensitive information related to the game you are currently playing
• New game details view, presenting a detailed view of all the information for a single game in your library
• New grid view, presenting a graphical view of your game library
• New news page in the store/client/overlay which aggregates from Valve related news sites, official community groups, and third-party gaming news feeds
• New downloads view in the client, making it easier to track your progress downloading new games or game updates
• New Steam store design, including more integrated community features, improved recommendations, and improved video and screenshots viewing (and much more!)