Valve has made their positions known on the current status of The Last Of Us Part 1 PC.
As screencapped by Twitter user Naughty Dog Central from Steam, this is the Steam’s message about Steam Deck compatibility for The Last Of Us Part 1 PC:
“Valve’s testing indicates this title is Unsupported on Steam Deck. Some or all of this game currently doesn’t function on Steam Deck.
Valve is still working on adding support for this game on Steam Deck.”
We had previously reported that Valve actually used The Last Of Us Part 1 PC to advertise the Steam Deck on their own website. YouTubers like ETA Prime actually tried to run the game on the gaming handheld, and found that they could make it run, but it isn’t optimized to run beyond a steady 30 FPS.
This news indicates that something has changed from that potentially compatible status. It is possible that its previous ability to run on the Linux based Steam Deck has already been compromised by Naughty Dog’s and Iron Galaxy’s patches and updates.
If that were the case, of course it can’t be helped for the time being. It would be best if Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy got The Last Of Us Part 1 PC working properly, and then optimized, for Windows, before they look into getting it running properly on Steam Deck. Most gamers will still be trying to run the game on Windows.
On a technical level as well, Steam Deck compatibility is dependent on a perfectly good Windows version playing well with Proton or WiNE. So, if the Windows version still isn’t fully functional, then any work that would be made towards a Steam Deck port may have to be disposed of in the future.
On a side note, the early tests that YouTubers made for The Last Of Us Part 1 PC does seem to have been a bad omen we should have collectively paid more attention to, that there could be problems with this latest PlayStation Studios release.
In the meantime, Valve has been good when it comes to refunds for The Last Of Us Part 1 PC. They have seemingly waived their two hour requirement as well. Redditors are sharing that they have played the game past two hours, and still received their refund for The Last Of Us Part 1 PC, when they requested it.
This may seem like something Valve is doing against Sony’s wishes. But this might be what PlayStation Studios instructed Valve to do. Of course, Sony may have taken actions to manage the PR backlash as well as possible, and if that includes refunds with no strings attached, they will do that too. Hopefully we won’t have to wait that long for The Last Of Us Part 1 PC to get in proper working order.