Naughty Dog Is Less Interested In Steam Deck Verification As The Last of Us Part I Optimization & Stability Takes Priority

The Last of Us is a massively successful IP. After starting as a new PlayStation 3 exclusive, the franchise continued to thrive with a remastered PlayStation 4 and even a remake on the PlayStation 5. PC players, however, were only recently given access to the game, and it wasn’t necessarily a pretty launch. There were plenty of bugs and technical performance issues that fans have been sharing online. Still, that doesn’t mean the game is not actively being tweaked as developers continue to bring out fixes for the game. But if you were wondering where the Steam Deck verification badge is, don’t expect this to be on the top of the to-do list for developers.

Recently, Neil Druckmann took to Twitter, alerting followers that right now, getting verified is not a priority for the development team. Instead, the focus is ensuring that The Last of Us Part I is stable and optimized for the PC. Interestingly enough, the tweet also mentions that they want to ensure the game is also stable and optimized for the Steam Deck. So even though it might not have that verification badge quite yet, it does look like the developers are actively working to ensure the game will be able to run well on the Valve gaming handheld. Fortunately, a recent patch release helped address several issues with the game.

If you didn’t catch it already, there is a 1.0.1.7 patch available for The Last of Us Part I on the PC platform. This patch is aiding different areas of the game, whether that’s fixing the UI/UX, unintended character behavior, or random game crashes for those on certain GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. That should hopefully make for a better experience, but this is likely far from the last patch to hit the game as the developers strive to create a similar gameplay experience to those playing on Sony’s PlayStation 5 console. 

Perhaps afterward, we’ll start to see a focus on ensuring that the game is completely ready and stable for the Valve Steam Deck. We imagine that there are quite a few players that wouldn’t mind taking this gameplay experience on the go. After all, there are bound to be players just now getting their first experience with The Last of Us video game series. Thanks to the incredibly successful HBO live-action adaptation of The Last of Us, more players were pushed back towards the video games to see how the narrative plays out both from the first game and where the storyline will be taking players by going through its sequel, The Last of Us Part II.