Most games are perfectly playable nowadays, specially with anticheat compatibility, but in 2018 the situation was much worse
As of now, there are over 8,000 games that are either Playable or Verified on the Steam Deck[1]. Considering that the Steam catalog has just over 50,000 games[2], this means that approximately 16% of all games on Steam are currently compatible with the Steam Deck. It’s important to note that this number is constantly increasing as Valve continues to test and verify more games for the platform.
In terms of the top 100 most played games on Steam, 75.2% of them are either Playable or Verified on the Steam Deck[3]. This indicates that a significant portion of popular games is compatible with the device, providing a wide variety of gaming options for Steam Deck users.
Keep in mind that even some Unsupported games might work on the Steam Deck, as the numbers only include those that have been through Valve’s formal Deck Verified system[1]. You can still install and attempt to play any game you want, but compatibility and performance may vary.
Citations:
[1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/03/steam-deck-hits-over-8000-games-playable/
[2] https://www.pcgamer.com/nearly-10-of-all-games-on-steam-are-now-steam-deck-compatible/
I currently daily drive Linux, but in my experience a game being rated as compatible on the Steam Deck doesn’t mean it will be compatible with all Linux distros - or even the Steam Deck itself, since a game can be gold rated and then an update can break it and leave an incorrect rating in place for a while. Also, a game being playable doesn’t mean that all of its functions will behave as expected.
But all that said I haven’t actually run into problems playing anything for a while. For some older games I’ve even found that the Linux version was inferior to the Windows version via Proton.
anon forgor to enable proton
if gaming is a dealbreaker you have an addiction