This is a really nice quality-of-life feature. Thanks for adding it!

Pretty nice, except that switching branches is cumbersome for large games, and in some cases you want to have several branches downloaded and ready to launch — but it’s not possible in Steam. Which makes this change more niche, though using branches for end-users is already a pretty niche thing.
So i can see the potential, but doubt we would actually use this.

I think this is a nice feature if your project has an external launcher. You could use it to switch steam branches without having to have users go through the properties menu.

Inside the game it's useful for checking the current branch (without having to do a really awkward web API request), but of course you have to restart the game if you want to change the game files.

Amazing stuff, another WIN!

Steam, can you please add the ability for private/beta branches to use "merge with baseline"?? Every time I use this option, it merges with the 'default' build, not the baseline of the private build. Please and thank you!!!

HarvesteR님이 먼저 게시:

I think this is a nice feature if your project has an external launcher. You could use it to switch steam branches without having to have users go through the properties menu.

↑ This i agree, games with launchers likely benefit from this more. But using launchers is a bad practice on Steam anyway.
It feels this feature have arrived late — usually nowadays i’d prefer to use a Playtest app than some public/user-accessible branch.

HarvesteR님이 먼저 게시:

Inside the game it's useful for checking the current branch (without having to do a really awkward web API request), but of course you have to restart the game if you want to change the game files.

You mean checking that the game has a pending update while it’s running? And if there is — ask the player to restart the game.
That certainly sounds like a pretty useful scenario for most global multiplayer games.

yesboxstudios님이 먼저 게시:

Steam, can you please add the ability for private/beta branches to use "merge with baseline"?? Every time I use this option, it merges with the 'default' build, not the baseline of the private build. Please and thank you!!!

I think that’s intended and unlikely to be changed. The baseline = default branch.
Those are not programmer-style branches, Steam branches are simply name revisions, so it’s not possible to use them as VSC-branches, they’re not intended for that.

So gotta use Playtest and Demo apps when you need it to be public — and internal dev-only AppIDs — otherwise.

A very useful update. If we can just get the workshop to allow hosting of multiple mod versions tied to game versions - then my update nightmares will finally end.

There should be an API to unlock a private beta with key in the sdk.

Valve pls give players ability to lock game version for modding!

Does this work with password-protected branches? If so, how?

This is a nice feature! Thanks Steam team for making developer-friendly improvements like this one over the past 6 months.

GE-0님이 먼저 게시:

Pretty nice, except that switching branches is cumbersome for large games, and in some cases you want to have several branches downloaded and ready to launch — but it’s not possible in Steam. Which makes this change more niche, though using branches for end-users is already a pretty niche thing.
So i can see the potential, but doubt we would actually use this.

I agree this is the main Issue with Beta branches in Steam. Having the possibility to install multiple versions at once would be a real life saver.

yesboxstudios님이 먼저 게시:

Steam, can you please add the ability for private/beta branches to use "merge with baseline"?? Every time I use this option, it merges with the 'default' build, not the baseline of the private build. Please and thank you!!!

I also think this behavior is unclear at first and pretty annoying, I usually just end up switching my old build to default and going through 2fa before uploading the next beta. However I think this is because the branch functionality of the browser upload was tacked on later.