To make sure that players aren’t disappointed once they finally have their Steam Decks, Valve has said it would test every single game on Steam for the handheld console. The statement comes as part of a larger post regarding the Steam Deck’s verification process, which grades games based on their performance on Valve’s console.
There are four grades that games can get, ranging from Verified, which means a game can simply be played on a Steam Deck with no issue, to Unsupported. While a large number of games will either be Verified or at least Playable, which means users can play the game after some tooling around with controller configuration, a solid chunk of Steam games will be completely unsupported. Specifically, Steam Deck users won’t be able to tape the console to their heads and play VR titles, although that should be a given.
What’s a bit more concerning is just how Valve will be reviewing each and every game in Steam’s massive library. We have reached out to Valve to confirm that it is looking through every entry in Steam’s catalog and will update this article when we get a response. It seems nearly impossible for any team to sort through all the games on Steam. Instead, it’s likely that important games will be graded immediately while other titles that may not have broad appeal will be stuck in some form of grading queue, where they may never actually get evaluated.
Steam Decks have been available to order for some time now, with early customers able to expect their mobile PC hardware this December. Newly reserved Steam Decks will likely ship sometime in the second quarter of 2022.
