HANDHELD NEWS – The Steam Deck, Valve’s portable PC, supports more and more games, so we can be increasingly confident that whatever we want to play will work on it.

Released in February 2022, Valve’s handheld PC paves the way for enjoying games from the Steam library on the go. Currently, 30,000 games have the green Steam Deck-compatible seal—or at least a “playable” rating. According to the latest data from SteamDB, 8,964 of these games are “Steam Deck Verified,” and 21,083 are considered “playable.” This is a significant increase from May 2022, when only 3,000 games had “Verified” or “Playable” ratings.

A “Verified” rating indicates that the game will perform optimally on the Steam Deck from the initial launch, whereas “Playable” games may necessitate adjustments or configuration for the best experience. Similar compatibility checks are also being conducted for the Steam Machine, the upcoming Steam Frame, and SteamOS in general. While it may seem like a simple process, it’s important to note that the full set of Steam Deck certification criteria can pose challenging obstacles for developers.

Just because a game doesn’t have one of these labels doesn’t mean it won’t run on the Steam Deck. Dragon Age: Origins, for example, isn’t officially supported, yet it runs incredibly well on Valve’s device. Granted, it’s a 17-year-old game, but we believe the key point still holds true: an “unsupported” label doesn’t always mean the game won’t run on the Steam Deck. However, one thing to be cautious about is that kernel-level anti-cheat systems, which are often used in competitive games, don’t always work well with the device’s Linux-based SteamOS. This means that games may not always be playable on the Steam Deck. Ubisoft recently announced that it is removing For Honor from Linux to provide a safer environment for players because it cannot provide adequate protection on this platform. This means that, starting September 10, the game will no longer be supported on the Steam Deck.

According to SteamDB data, over 130,000 games have been released on Steam to date. In 2022, only half as many were available. Given the platform’s significant growth over the past four years, the fact that only 10% of Steam games were officially compatible with the Steam Deck seems like a distant memory now.

Source: PCGamer, SteamDB, SteamDB, Ubisoft