Valve needs to rethink the Deck Verified program

The Steam Deck Verified program was a good start, but it’s time to move on.

Valve separates compatibility with the Steam Deck into four buckets. You have Verified games, which have a green check mark for Valve’s seal of approval, and you have Playable games, which would normally get a Verified badge had it not been for some small issues (i.e. small text or invoking the on-screen keyboard). Those are the two categories you gravitate toward.

Then, there are Unsupported games, which have what Valve sees as a game-breaking issue, such as the use of anti-cheat software that doesn’t work properly on Linux. And finally, Unknown games, which Valve just doesn’t know anything about — there are a lot of games on Steam. Valve lays out four criteria to earn a Verified badge, which you can see below.

Something that isn’t included here but does show up on Verified games is this line: “This game’s default graphics configuration performs well on Steam Deck.” Valve has taken some flack for that, particularly with problematic games on the Steam Deck like The Last of Us Part One and No Rest for the Wicked. But overall, this has been a good system.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a good shorthand for quickly knowing if a game will work or not. If you want to go deeper, websites like ProtonDB are fantastic, but the Deck Verified program still has its place. I know, at a glance, that I can play Marvel Rivals on my Steam Deck, but I can’t play Apex Legends. That’s helpful, albeit far from perfect.

But handhelds are changing, as are games, and it’s time for the Deck Verified program to change along with them.

The times, they are a-

The most obvious sign of that is the Lenovo Legion Go S that comes with SteamOS installed. This handheld is set to launch in a few short months, it’s officially licensed by Valve, and it shows the same Deck Verified badges that the Steam Deck does. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Steam Deck and the Lenovo Legion Go S have two different chips in them, and presumably with a decently large performance gap between them — read my Steam Deck versus ROG Ally comparison for more on that. The idea of something being verified for the Steam Deck kind of falls apart when we’re not talking about the Steam Deck.

That’s just one device, but Valve says it plans to release SteamOS more broadly into beta before Lenovo’s handheld releases. It’s just a beta release, so bugs, performance issues, and other problems are expected. But Valve clearly has ambitions for SteamOS beyond one device, and third-party versions of Valve’s open-source operating system, such as Bazzite, are becoming increasingly popular. I’m all for that expansion, but the more devices that use SteamOS, the less helpful the Deck Verified program becomes.

The expansion of SteamOS is so exciting because there are handhelds that are more powerful than the Steam Deck. I don’t really want to spend $800 on an ROG Ally X if I can get the same experience on a Steam Deck OLED for $650. But the ROG Ally X is more powerful, and capable of running more demanding games, which justifies the extra cost. Hardware is meeting the demands of games, but the Deck Verified program can’t come along for the ride.

Maybe you can squeeze another Final Fantasy VII Rebirth or Cyberpunk 2077 under the Deck Verified badge, but anyone who’s played these games on the Steam Deck can tell you that the system is at its limit. As time goes on, we’ll see more games like Stalker 2, Warhammer 40K: Darktide, and Silent Hill 2 that are Unsupported simply because they’re too demanding to run on the Steam Deck. Valve was able to use this system for three years, but I don’t think it can survive another three.

If you’re not onboard yet, think about the Steam Deck 2. Valve says it’ll release a sequel to the Steam Deck when it feels there’s a “generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life.” When that happens, will we have a system where some games are Verified but others, like Silent Hill 2, are only Verified for the Steam Deck 2? I don’t want to deal with that. I already went through the whole New Nintendo 3DS fiasco — Valve can do better.

Some simple fixes

I’m not here to just complain. I have some ideas, too. And thankfully, they wouldn’t drastically change the Deck Verified program all while making it a lot more useful as SteamOS (and handhelds more broadly) scale up.

First, performance can’t be part of the equation. Valve’s official criteria don’t specifically call out performance, but performance is still a part of the program. Games that are too demanding won’t be Verified. It’s time for Valve to draw a line in the sand on performance as we see different handhelds that are using different screens and different hardware configurations. The program should tackle if the game works on SteamOS, or if it doesn’t; that’s the only long-term solution without chasing new performance targets every few years.

In its place, Valve should use its strongest asset: the Steam community. There are a lot of ways Valve could go about this. Maybe there are some dropdowns in game reviews that show if the player used a handheld or not, and what handheld they used. And, maybe you can filter those reviews so you can easily find them instead of scanning the first few that pop up and hoping for something helpful. That helps players, and it even helps developers, as you can filter out performance-related issues on handhelds — I remember quite a bit of vitriol about No Rest for the Wicked at launch related to Steam Deck performance issues.

Valve could also have them in a separate area, maybe with suggestions from users on how to get the best performance. That’s one of the draws of ProtonDB, after all. If Valve wanted to maintain its open-source approach to software, it might even be able to integrate ProtonDB into the Deck Verified program — there are already ways to do that through the Deck Tools software.

Beyond filtering out performance, the Deck Verified program needs more specifics about what constitutes an Unsupported game. Right now, the range is fairly large, from games that flat-out won’t work to titles that will work — and work well — with some inconvenient setup. For example, Batman: Arkham Asylum is Unsupported, but it works fine. You need to manually tap the launcher, and sleeping your handheld during gameplay can boot you back to the main menu if you’re connected to Wi-Fi. That’s significantly different than something like Apex Legends which won’t work due to its anti-cheat software.

I don’t want Valve to endlessly add more badges to the Deck Verified program, but one additional segment of games that work with significant workarounds would be welcome, particularly for older games like Arkham Asylum that aren’t likely to see an update. Once again, Valve could leverage its community or point users toward ProtonDB if they want more information on the workarounds.

Valve won’t ever make the Deck Verified program perfect. Trying to create a simple program to tackle support that’s inherently complex is bound to have contradictions and oversights. However, the Deck Verified program can still be significantly better than it is now. And with the rising tide of SteamOS, it’s time to make those changes.