A death that had already been announced many months ago.
On January 1, 2026, Valve will bring to fruition an end of life that was no longer in any doubt. On that date, the 32-bit client of the number-one PC gaming platform - the illustrious Steam - will no longer be supported by the American company. This comes as no surprise, since 32-bit clients were already only available for Windows 10, while Microsoft itself discontinued its 32-bit versions with the release of Windows 11. And it's not the only one, since companies as valuable to PC gamers as AMD and NVIDIA have long since stopped offering 32-bit graphics drivers. 64-bit has won the day.
"As of January 1, 2026, Steam will stop supporting systems running 32-bit versions of Windows. Windows 10 32-bit is the only 32-bit version currently supported by Steam, and is only used on 0.01% of systems counted in the Steam Hardware Survey. Windows 10 64-bit will continue to be supported, and 32-bit games will still run.
Existing installations of the Steam client will continue to run on Windows 10 32-bit in the short term, but will no longer receive updates, including security updates. Steam Support will no longer be able to offer technical assistance to users for issues related to older operating systems, and Steam will not be able to guarantee the continued operation of Steam on unsupported versions.
To ensure continuity of updates and compatibility, users are advised to upgrade to a 64-bit version of Windows.
This change is necessary because Steam's core functionality relies on system drivers and other libraries not supported by 32-bit versions of Windows. Future versions of Steam will run only on 64-bit versions of Windows. We strongly encourage all 32-bit Windows users to upgrade as soon as possible.
Published on Steam's own website, the above message could not be clearer. The end of support for the 32-bit client doesn't mean that gamers still using 32-bit - 0.01% of players according to Valve - will no longer be able to launch the application. What it does mean is that they will no longer benefit from any support whatsoever: no updates, not even security updates, no technical support and no handling of any problems. Logically, Valve's advice to these (rare) players is obviously to upgrade as quickly as possible to a 64-bit version of Windows, in order to benefit from all the updates. A new page is turned.
