The top 100 list has already been posted, but I thought this article makes some interesting observations on the list.
Overall the variety of games and experiences on that list really show how versatile the deck is, and that people can still have a great time with games that aren’t a perfect experience on the deck.
Doesn’t deck verified mean a lot more than just Linux compatibility? Specifically conforming to deck controls, the deck screen size, and other aspects of playing on the deck?
Yes, it requires it runs well with default settings, everything is accessible with the standard deck controls, that all the control displays use the steam deck icons, and it doesn’t reference controls the deck doesn’t have. It’s a very high bar.
Also UI has to look good at either 720p or 1280x800. A lot of modern games don’t do that well at low res.
And if there is a need to write text, it has to pop up the in screen keyboard automatically. Which afaik means “you have to implement the Steam Input API”, unless there is some hacky workaround for that. But in any case, it’s something the dev has to do specifically for Deck support, it doesn’t just happen.
Icons actually can just happen, as quite a few games use libraries that already have the SD icons included if it detects the controller type.
Steam did try to hack Wine’s handling of windows textboxes to automatically trigger the OSK. I’m not sure if they gave up there (or I got lucky in disabling it), but it suuucked. It’s very easy to get into fights with that auto-popup, particularly if you’re trying to do wine-tweaking tasks.
Elder scrolls online works perfectly , you just have to tap touchscreen to play on the launcher then close the launcher.
There are some games that run perfectly on the deck that aren’t fully verified simply because you have to enter text at some point and it does not automatically summon the steam deck keyboard
Yep, and that includes things like automatic UI scaling or automatic keyboard pop-ups where required. If you have to do any tweaking, from navigating a separate launcher or modifying controls, it will only get “Playable” at best.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at all or that the tweaks are hard to set up. Verified just means it should be 99.9% idiot-proof.
Yes, Deck Verified basically means it should run on deck as if it were designed for it specifically. It should be comparable to how well a console game runs on its target console.
Oh yea, I can’t remember what game it was but the fact it had a launcher where you had to click play with the touch pad was enough that it wasn’t verified. It’s a pretty high bar.
Bitch-slapping games with a stupid launcher, that I can get behind. Wanna be verified? remove the shitty launcher. Done.
Pretty sure it does, also many games listed as unverified or not supported run just fine.
On the other hand it’s possible the opposite. Gunner HEAT PC is verified. There’s no way to get 30 fps and controls barely work with a keyboard, so I wonder what the devil happened between the time it got verified and when I tried it.
Bad patches? Sketchy verification?