More than half of the 100 most popular games on Steam work on the Steam Deck
We have echoed the latest dates of the Steam Deck boom as far as compatible games are concerned, but as we repeat so many times on this and other issues, quantity does not equal quality and, given the choice, a few good games are better than tons of trash, although the latter is usually common on all types of platforms.
However, Steam Deck can equally boast of having a large catalog, being a device that has just arrived on the market as they say; just as it can boast of having a curated catalog, full of high quality titles. So much so that over half of the top 100 most popular Steam games run on the Steam Deck, which is not bad at all. By the way: by popular we mean the most played, or the ones that accumulate the most players.
To recapitulate a bit to give context to the information, Steam Deck went on sale about a month and a half ago with just 80 compatible games, which are not recommended. As we have been explaining, Valve’s strategy to endorse games for Steam Deck is being quite strict and not all compatible games are compatible to the same level: there are “verified” ones, games “fully functional on Steam Deck and adapted to the and device controls”; and there are “playable” ones, games that work reasonably well, but can cause different kinds of problems.
Thus, Steam Deck went on sale with 40-odd titles of each, although in just over a week there were a thousand and after a month the figure doubled, always understanding the total as the sum of verified and playable games . The good news is that **the former are usually more than the latter, although the margin of difference is not much.
In the last fifteen days, the total number of games compatible with Steam Deck amounts to 2,235 according to data from SteamDB, so it can be said that the growth of the console’s catalog continues at a good pace.
Now, how many of those games are worth playing? Because two thousand or ten thousand, if the majority are mediocre… But it is not the case, judging by the look that they have given to the matter in Boiling Steam, where they have gone to work to separate the grain from the chaff with a satisfactory result: 54% of the 100 most popular games on Steam run on the Steam Deck. And counting.
In other words, out of the hundred most popular games on Steam, 54 are compatible with the Steam Deck, including 28 verified games and 26 playable. And the 46 games that are missing until completing the hundred? 26 are not supported and 20 have not been tested yet, so the percentage of positives might be higher, who knows.
In the original publication they have embedded a table with the list of yore, which distinguishes between verified, playable, unsupported and untested games. In the first group there are titles such as PAYDAY 2, ELDEN RING either No Man’s Sky as verified, Counter-Strike: Source, unturned either path of exile as playable; in the second they are planet side 2, destiny 2 either Lost Ark as not supported, Warframe, World of Tanks Blitz either monster hunter world as untested.
In short, it can be said that the Steam Deck catalog is growing at a good pace both in quantity and quality, although it still has a long way to go. Don’t forget either that you potentially have the entire Steam catalog at your disposal. However, Valve has decided to go slowly to ensure quality.
To all this, it is no longer necessary to go to SteamDB to see how things are going: the search for games on Steam already includes options to filter the verified and playable games available for the Steam Deck.
