Valve recently confirmed that there are now over one thousand games that have been verified to be playable on the hand-held console, Steam Deck.
Valve has confirmed that over 1000 titles are listed as “Verified” or “Playable” on the Steam Deck. Their new handheld launched in February 2022 to high praise and was already able to play an impressive number of games at launch.
Valve’s Steam Deck is essentially a portable PC and an impressive one at that. The handheld sports enough power and performance to run brand new AAA games, with the Steam Deck’s compatibility listing boasting that it can run Elden Ring, a game that shared a release date with the handheld. Other games marked as verified at launch include Control and DOOM Eternal, which were used when showcasing the device to journalists, and in promotional footage prior to its launch.
In an update by Valve on Steam, the developer stated that within a week of launching the Steam Deck, over a thousand games are now marked as Verified or Playable on the device. They also explained what these labels meant, demonstrating the criteria for a game to be marked as Verified on the Steam Deck, from all in-game text being legible, to function when using the default controller and graphics configuration. When granting a Verified tag to a title, Valve has clearly aimed for them to be immediately playable when loaded on the handheld, with very few settings needing to be changed beforehand.
For games that don’t fully meet all the criteria to be marked as Verified on the Steam Deck, due to needing keyboard input, or displaying keyboard glyphs despite playing with controller settings, they are granted a Playable status. This does seem to be an issue that will be common with older games, as was the case when the Steam controller was initially launched, however, for games where the developers are actively working with Valve to attain full compatibility, Valve unveiled a new feature for developers to directly talk to customers about the work being done to their title. Through this feature, the developer can provide links to blog posts on the Steam Deck Compatibility section of a game’s store page, detailing their progress and providing customers a level of transparency around how well titles will play on their device.
As this list continues to grow, fans can look forward to playing even more of their favorites on the go. Shortly after the Steam Deck‘s announcement back in July 2021, the team at Valve did state that their goal was to get as much of the current Steam library playable on the console as possible, and this announcement is an indication that they are continuously testing and working with developers to ensure this is possible.
Source: Steam
About The Author
