Portable PC gaming is really coming to the forefront in 2022. New gaming laptops and mobile chips are being announced, and of course there's the release of Valve's Steam Deck. The portable Switch-like gaming PC has been making waves, and Valve's already planning a Steam Deck 2.
What's been equally as impressive as the little unit itself, is the push for compatibility. There are tonnes of games that work on the Steam Deck, but they do tend to vary in how well. Thankfully, Steam has a verification system to help people with this process, that rates games for how well they work with the new console PC hybrid.
For a game to be Steam Deck verified it has to work pretty seamlessly on the Steam Deck, just as it would on PC. While there are an unfathomable amount of games on the platform, it's safe to say that most users probably only care about a few. The top 100 games on Steam is a pretty safe bet for games people care about, so Boiling Steam has done the maths on how many of these games are supported.
It turns out 28 of the top 100 Steam games are Steam Deck Verified. This includes popular titles like Elden Ring, Apex Legends, Valheim, as well as 25 other games. It's really not a bad chunk of games to be working well on the new portable console, but it gets better.
Steam Deck review: Our verdict on Valve's handheld PC.
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Steam Deck - The emulation dream machine: Using Valve's handheld hardware as the ultimate emulator.
The next step down from Steam Deck Verified is Steam Deck playable. These are games that don't have as good an experience on the Deck as you'd get on a PC, or potentially just haven't been verified yet. They're a safe bet to try, and add another 26 games to the list out of the top 100 titles.
Games from this list include Counter-Strike: Source and Global Offensive, Dota 2, and Skyrim. Mostly they're very popular games that are a little bit older, so could be a bit lower on the priorities list. Still, together that brings the total up to 54 out of 100 of the most popular games on Steam working on the Deck. That's over 50% for the maths nerds out there.
The rest of the top 100 titles fall into either the unsupported or untested categories. There are 26 in the top 100 games on Steam that are listed as unsupported, and for many the reason is anti-cheat software, which is difficult to implement and get around on the Steam Deck. It's likely that without significant incentive, most developers won't be able to dedicate resources to get this working, and these games may just stay unsupported.
That just leaves 20 games yet to be rated for the Steam Deck, but honestly, some are still worth a shot. It's surprising how many games seem to perform well enough on the little machine without support.
The Steam Deck's working library of portable PC games is already pretty impressive, and seems set to grow. It looks like 2022 might really be the year of the Steam Deck.
