Steam Deck compatibility checker tested against 810 games, and the results might surprise...

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: Valve recently launched a tool that allows gamers to check the Steam Deck compatibility rating of every game in their library. Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett, who has more games than any one person I know, recently check to see how many of his more than 800 games were compatible. The results might surprise you.

Plunkett has amassed a sizable collection of titles over the years – 810, to be precise – and decided to check his collection’s compatibility as a bit of a real-world indicator to see how Valve has prepared for the handheld’s pending release.

Many of the games were sent to him for evaluation for a review, meaning they span a variety of genres and eras.

Of the 810 games in his library, only 59 were fully certified and 100 percent ready for the Steam Deck. Additionally, 66 fell into the category of being functional, “but might require extra effort to interact with or configure.”

Plunkett’s collection consisted of just 23 games that flat out aren’t compatible with the Steam Deck, including titles like Rage 2, Gears 5, Rainbow Six Siege and Surviving Mars.

The Steam back catalog is pretty massive, and this is an ongoing process, so if one of your games hasn’t been tested yet, that doesn’t mean it won’t work well on the Steam Deck. Indeed, the remaining 632 games in Plunkett’s collection fall into the untested category.

Valve notes that you’ll be able to install any title in your library onto the Steam Deck, regardless of its compatibility rating.

Valve will start the Steam Deck purchase process on February 25, sending e-mails to the first batch of reservation holders. These people will have 72 hours to complete their purchase; fail to do so within this window, and Valve will release the reservation to the next person in the queue.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93545-steam-deck-compatibility-checker-tested-against-810-games.html

 

[Dimitriid]

125 out of 810 puts Valve at only 15% compatibility (Tested).

While I expect many lesser known indie titles and asset flippers to not be ranked at all, the fact he's a professional reviewer means that over a long spawn of time of relatively popular titles it's only 15% that are actually either working or have workarounds but have been tested.

This is disappointing, but not unexpected: I knew Proton compatibility was going to be their weak point and many people told me Valve would be able to pull it off and greatly increase compatibility but it just doesn't looks like it to me.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Most developers don't need to wait for Valve, they can ensure compatibility themselves whilst they wait for Valve to then rubber stamp it.

 

[punctualturn]

I will add, Proton is great.

I bought Strider a long time ago and even back then, the game was notorious for being "crashy".

Fast forward to today and I wanted to replay it, on my fresh Windows 11 install and it was even worse than before, crash wise.

I then decided to test Proton and installed Fedora workstation 35 and amazingly, the game ran, it was able to continue were I left on Windows and didnt crash!

But, as usual, something else broke and the game had no sound, no music, nothing.

So thats a possible issue for Valve, assuming its not a Linux issue.

 

[yRaz]

125 out of 810 puts Valve at only 15% compatibility (Tested).

While I expect many lesser known indie titles and asset flippers to not be ranked at all, the fact he's a professional reviewer means that over a long spawn of time of relatively popular titles it's only 15% that are actually either working or have workarounds but have been tested.

This is disappointed, but not unexpected: I knew Proton compatibility was going to be their weak point and many people told me Valve would be able to pull it off and greatly increase compatibility but it just doesn't looks like it to me.

It's their compatibility rating at testing. As someone who uses steam to game on Linux frequently, there are plenty of untested games that run fine. All this list is is a list of games that valve has officially tested and confirmed to work with the steam deck. Untested and unconfirmed games do not mean that the games do not work. Please note that there are games with Linux versions on steam that are untested for the steam deck.

This title is nothing more than click bait article with single sentence paragraphs. It does not express how, in the video, "games listed as playable mean you have to open the onscreen keyboard to enter login information for some launchers". And Shawn is only talking about "compatible" in his article as in you don't need to type anything in or bring up the onscreen keyboard.



So, Shawn, before you clickbait us all to death with your horrible writing and reporting skills, What percentage of his games are listed by steam as "incompatible" and flat out wont work? 23 out of 810 games wont work? So what you're actually saying is that 3% of the games in his steam library WONT work on the steam deck but the other 97% are playable?

EDIT: I just noticed this when I reread my comment. 59 of the games are 100% playable without issue(thanks for a list of those games, btw) and 66 are functional(thanks for a list of those games, aswell) and 23 games are listed not working

so out of 148 TESTED games, 23(15%) don't work with the other 632 simply not being tested very well might work.

 

[dangh]

125 out of 810 puts Valve at only 15% compatibility (Tested)

You got it wrong. Out of the 178 tested games only 23 won't work (12pct). 632 games had not been tested yet, but most of them will work according to proton compatibility table.

Imo this is very good result. We know that many of those games require updated anti cheat software, so there is a chance that with eac update we will see large increase in compatibility currently unsupported titles.
Will check it out in q2...

 

[Dimitriid]

You got it wrong. Out of the 178 tested games only 23 won't work (12pct). 632 games had not been tested yet, but most of them will work according to proton compatibility table.

Imo this is very good result. We know that many of those games require updated anti cheat software, so there is a chance that with eac update we will see large increase in compatibility currently unsupported titles.
Will check it out in q2...

I think my initial post lacked clarity but that's what I meant: 15% of games are either steam deck certified or known to work with some tweaking (125 out of 810 comes to 15.43%)

That's still 85% untested. Now I can concede that the impact of big titles and recent games could mean that the 15% from this reviewer could be like 70 or 80% of the most owned and most played games so that would be a very positive development indeed.

However I still maintain that Steam is a huge library and having only tested 15% of all games is pretty much asking for a hell of a lot of support from Valve, a company I don't foresee creating a dedicated contact center just to try and deal with those issues many of which by the very nature of having to deal with Proton and compatibility layers on Linux, will be incredibly difficult to troubleshoot or patch.

Mind you, I don't think the solution is for Valve to just give up and make a deal with Microsoft. I am merely saying that people shouldn't expect miracles from Valve instantly turning Linux into a perfect solution, in fact the average user of a steam deck will run into several games they own or want to play that are untested that's just basic statistics.

 

[yRaz]

I think my initial post lacked clarity but that's what I meant: 15% of games are either steam deck certified or known to work with some tweaking (125 out of 810 comes to 15.43%)

That's still 85% untested. Now I can concede that the impact of big titles and recent games could mean that the 15% from this reviewer could be like 70 or 80% of the most owned and most played games so that would be a very positive development indeed.

However I still maintain that Steam is a huge library and having only tested 15% of all games is pretty much asking for a hell of a lot of support from Valve, a company I don't foresee creating a dedicated contact center just to try and deal with those issues many of which by the very nature of having to deal with Proton and compatibility layers on Linux, will be incredibly difficult to troubleshoot or patch.

Mind you, I don't think the solution is for Valve to just give up and make a deal with Microsoft. I am merely saying that people shouldn't expect miracles from Valve instantly turning Linux into a perfect solution, in fact the average user of a steam deck will run into several games they own or want to play that are untested that's just basic statistics.

https://www.protondb.com/

 

[scavengerspc]

Luke Plunkett, who has more games than any one person I know, recently check to see how many of his more than 800 games were compatible.

Then let me introduce myself Shawn because I have 832 !!!

 

[pcnthuziast]

I don't think even Valve expects this toy to be a long term success. It's a beta test, at best and not even for the device itself, but the concept.

 

[Eldritch]

I don't think even Valve expects this toy to be a long term success. It's a beta test, at best and not even for the device itself, but the concept.

Most first gen devices are eg Galaxy fold or Steam's own gamepad. Deck 2 will be significantly better in all aspects and will be touted as great leap when compared to OG Deck.

 

[Puiu]

I don't think even Valve expects this toy to be a long term success. It's a beta test, at best and not even for the device itself, but the concept.

The "toy" is being made with a huge R&D budget and is being sold at a loss or close to one. Valve is serious.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Yeah people buying this are beta testers. Reviews are out today and its 720p 30fps on a low quality LCD screen, thats a dealbreaker for me if im running PC games.

I think in a few years time when they can shrink the hardware, improve the battery life, screen and game compatibility it will be a good time to buy a steam deck. But im not interested in this first monstrosity.

 

[Puiu]

Yeah people buying this are beta testers. Reviews are out today and its 720p 30fps on a low quality LCD screen, thats a dealbreaker for me if im running PC games.

I think in a few years time when they can shrink the hardware, improve the battery life, screen and game compatibility it will be a good time to buy a steam deck. But im not interested in this first monstrosity.

Reviews are out and it's massively positive, better than what even the switch got at launch.