Just over a year after its initial release on February 25th, 2022 Valve’s Steam Deck now has over 9000 games that are either completely verified or at the very least playable. With the current state of handheld consoles on the market, Valve has managed to carve its own niche for players looking to experience varying PC and Steam titles on the go. Its huge library of games is likely why the console has been majorly successful in its first year alone.
While there’s more guarantee of your handheld games working on a Nintendo Switch Valve’s ability to play games on either PC or on the Steam Deck has been a massive draw for consumers. Over the last year Valve and other developers have made a real effort to get their PC games compatible on Steam Deck either as fully verified or playable. Most recently big games like Resident Evil 4 and A Plague Tale: Requiem have been included in the two categories.
While Valve does note that not every game will be fully compatible with the console despite being marked as ‘playable for Steam Deck’ players are still likely to get a good experience on the handheld console with the marked titles. In fact, over half of Steam’s top 100 popular games are available to play on Steam Deck as either fully compatible or playable.
At the beginning of April Valve started listing the top games played on Steam Deck featuring titles such as Elden Ring, Stardew Valley, Vampire Survivors, and even Red Dead Redemption 2.
Valve has really paved the way for PC gaming on the go and it’ll be even more interesting to see how the company adapts its approach to the Steam Deck with competitors now starting to enter the market such as Asus’ ROG Ally. Asus’ system is set to feature a 7″ display alongside offering 1080p resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate which is a big difference from Valve’s offered 1280 x 800. However, we’ll have to see how much the ROG Ally will retail for as previously it was rumored that the system may cost around $649. The system is also rumored to be releasing in October of this year with two versions set to be available. A 512GB version at $649 and a 1TB version at $899. Will you pick one up or do you have more faith in Valve’s Steam Deck?
