Nearly 10% of all games on Steam are now Steam Deck compatible

Image of the Steam Deck playing Frostpunk. — (Image credit: Future)

Valve hit a new milestone for the Steam Deck this week, revealing that it just passed 5,000 games that are Verified and Playable for its portable gaming handheld. Not bad, considering the Steam catalog has just over 50,000 games at the last count in 2021.

Games must pass four categories to be considered 'Verified' and receive that precious green checkmark. The four boxes that need to be checked are Input, Display, Seamlessness, and System Support. If a game hits anything less but can still be played with some caveats, then it's just considered 'Playable.'

'Playable' might mean that some in-game text might be too small to read or display non-Steam Deck controller icons in games. Valve has a more in-depth checklist that provides developers with everything they need before they submit their games for compatibility review. This process generally takes about a week from submission.

Also, if you happen to be in Japan next month for the Tokyo Games Show, Valve's handing out copies of a neat little book about the Steam Deck's development, or you can just download it here. The book also gave away Valve's plans to continue building and improving on this portable PC, so we look forward to the Steam Deck 2.0. Valve isn't usually good at making 3s of anything, but maybe just this one time?

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Jorge is a hardware writer from the enchanted lands of New Jersey. When he's not filling the office with the smell of Pop-Tarts, he's reviewing all sorts of gaming hardware, from laptops with the latest mobile GPUs to gaming chairs with built-in back massagers. He's been covering games and tech for over ten years and has written for Dualshockers, WCCFtech, Tom's Guide, and a bunch of other places on the world wide web.