43 of the Top 50 most highly-reviewed Steam games are Steam Deck Playable

Hi, while this is quite interesting, perhaps for the next lists we could also add a column for their ProtonDB rating? As someone who can't purchase the Deck, it would still be nice to keep track a comparison of the Deck Verification ratings and the ProtonDB ratings.

Quoting: fenglengshunHi, while this is quite interesting, perhaps for the next lists we could also add a column for their ProtonDB rating? As someone who can't purchase the Deck, it would still be nice to keep track a comparison of the Deck Verification ratings and the ProtonDB ratings.

On it. Edit: done.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 12 July 2022 at 11:07 am UTC

It's interesting that of the Unchecked, two are Gold on ProtonDB and two are native. So presumably it wouldn't take much for all four of those to become Playable.
That leaves only the three Unsupported as definitely not workable on the Deck--but note that even that doesn't mean they don't work on Linux period, since all three of those Unsupported are actually Linux native. Presumably their Unsupported category is about specifically Deck-related issues, not Linux-related issues. I'd say that's particularly clear for Alyx, eh?

Bottom line: While only 43/50 of those titles are currently "Playable" or better on the Steam Deck, already a pretty dashed good figure, all 50 can be played on Linux. That's amazing.

Incidentally, 25 of them, exactly half, are Native, not even counting Tomb Raider. We get more native titles than some people think we do.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 12 July 2022 at 4:05 pm UTC

Thank you for another helpful and informative overview!

I'm a little bit astonished that there are that many native titles among these Top 50 - nice!

On a side note: I own way too many of these. :D

Why is OneShot native but unsupported?

Quoting: Purple Library GuyIt's interesting that of the Unchecked, two are Gold on ProtonDB and two are native. So presumably it wouldn't take much for all four of those to become Playable.
That leaves only the three Unsupported as definitely not workable on the Deck--but note that even that doesn't mean they don't work on Linux period, since all three of those Unsupported are actually Linux native. Presumably their Unsupported category is about specifically Deck-related issues, not Linux-related issues. I'd say that's particularly clear for Alyx, eh?

Bottom line: While only 43/50 of those titles are currently "Playable" or better on the Steam Deck, already a pretty dashed good figure, all 50 can be played on Linux. That's amazing.

Incidentally, 25 of them, exactly half, are Native, not even counting Tomb Raider. We get more native titles than some people think we do.

For sure there is a nice number of native games out there. What saddens me is the occasional one that works fine / better native, but defaults to Proton on the Steam Deck.

I do find it amusing that Half-Life: Alyx is on that list. It does, by the way, work flawlessly natively. Played through the entire game with no hiccups on a 2080RTX + Index. while I'm not sure the game is worth all the money you have to sink into a system, if you already have it... it is VERY cool. I should play more VR...

Quoting: tfkWhy is OneShot native but unsupported?

Don't know about that particular game, but there are reasons other than Linux support why a game doesn't work on the Deck. Not all games can be played well on a screen that small, and not all offer controller support, just to name two of the more common ones. I am actually quite a bit surprised that so many of these 50 games work well on a device they weren't designed for. That's pretty amazing.

Quoting: slaapliedjeI do find it amusing that Half-Life: Alyx is on that list. It does, by the way, work flawlessly natively. Played through the entire game with no hiccups on a 2080RTX + Index.

Your rig has the capacity to do VR. The Steam Deck does not. Hence all VR titles are "Unsupported" across the board by the Deck Verified process.

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: slaapliedjeI do find it amusing that Half-Life: Alyx is on that list. It does, by the way, work flawlessly natively. Played through the entire game with no hiccups on a 2080RTX + Index.

Your rig has the capacity to do VR. The Steam Deck does not. Hence all VR titles are "Unsupported" across the board by the Deck Verified process.

Correct, my point was that these are on the top 50! Makes one curious about the install base of VR at this point.

This talk of VR makes me curious. It would make a great Linux video to learn if someone using a dGPU over USB could theoretically run VR.

Obviously the software stack is fine for it.

It's silly and a ridiculous use-case that would never be practical in its current iteration but I do wonder.


In summary, as the list points out, there's certainly no shortage of things to play, I already have hundreds of games ready to play and they've all performed above my expectations. The resolution is perfect, I probably wouldn't notice much if it got boosted. The ergonomics of the SteamDeck are great, I hold it in one hand sideways just fine without fear of it slipping out of my hand. Controls and buttons are adequately large for adult hands. It literally has a Desktop (which will be great if this world-electric-shortage issue continues [which it will]).

All in all SD is a dream, not flawless, but still a dream. The only problem I had was last night the Internet had connectivity issues -- and I couldn't start the Steam Deck without internet as it got stuck in a "Checking for updates" screen.

I think Steam Deck & all content should be ready to play offline in the event there is no internet (which typically I think is the case, except I think it had just finished applying the update).

I also forsee potential times when internet outages may be happening, and hope the community can get together one of those "Offline Steam DLL" patches or whatever that allow existing content to be played offline.

We payed good money for our libraries, and if there is intermittent internet that's no good reason to not be able to play our purchases.