A look at the top 100 Steam games and how many will work on Linux and the Steam Deck

Across various previous articles we've looked at how many games are supported on Linux and how many Windows games work with Steam Play Proton, so let's take a look at the current top 100.

The top 100 Steam games is a list that fluctuates quite a lot, so this is taken using a snapshot of what was available thanks to SteamDB going by the 24 hour player peak count. Seems like a pretty good sample to use since it shouldn't be drastically different any time soon, except for big new releases after the article goes live of course. So this is just a snapshot of how things look in early October 2021 ahead of the Steam Deck release.

Over time the compatibility is expected to increase thanks to native ports, more Windows-only games working with Steam Play Proton and now Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye have expanded their support.

Some notes:

• Proton GE refers to the community-built version of Proton. So while it requires adding it manually (which takes all of 5 minutes), it still works. This is sometimes needed for games where videos don't work with the official Proton. Valve is working on getting them all working out of the box with official Proton.
• We expect Rust to work at the launch of the Steam Deck or shortly after, given that Garry Newman of Facepunch already stated previously it was in progress to have their Easy Anti-Cheat supported in Proton.
• Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition works but online multiplayer can desync unless you do a small fix.
• Phasmophobia doesn't have in-game voice due to it needing Windows Cortana.
• The native port of ARK: Survival Evolved is pretty poor, and online with the Windows version in Proton is broken due to the BattlEye anti-cheat used.
• Rocket League was removed from Steam, however it does work with Wine (which Proton is built from) if you use something like the Heroic Games Launcher.
• Total War: WARHAMMER II has a native Linux port but the multiplayer is separated from Windows, it does also work with Proton.
• The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth has a native port but the latest DLC does not, so it needs Proton for that.
• Fallout 4 works but needs a small launch option fix for the audio.
• Arma 3 single-player can work with Proton but multiplayer does not, same for eFootball PES 2021 SEASON UPDATE.
• Sea of Thieves works but is missing in-game voice chat.

The takeaway here is that when blending together native Linux builds, those that run well with the official Valve Proton and Proton GE you can currently expect approximately 75% (minus 3 if you don't want to count Proton GE) of the top 100 to work on Linux / SteamOS and so hopefully the SteamOS Linux powered Steam Deck too.

It's never going to be an exact figure because PC gaming (both Windows and Linux) has so many possible configurations, there's a lot of wiggle room for games to work for one person and not another so as always take it with a grain of salt. How well they work within the constraints of the Steam Deck is another matter, many will need special tweaks.

When you think about those broken by anti-cheat, 15 might not sound like a lot but these are they absolute most popular games on Steam. Their absence will be felt if they aren't updated to work.

Considering there are over 52,000 games on Steam (with hundreds releasing each week), Valve has plenty of work to do with Proton to hit their marketing where they've said their aim is for all games to work. Hopefully a bunch more developers will also look to support Linux directly with either native builds or properly test against Proton to further increase compatibility.