SteamOS Compatibility Ratings are coming to Steam "in the next few weeks"
Before the launch of the Deck, Valve announced the Steam Deck Verified program; a way to easily, at a glance, get an idea of how a specific game would work on their then upcoming device.
Well, this week, Valve announced the SteamOS Compatibility rating system—an extension of the Deck Verified program. This is meant to give gamers on SteamOS-powered devices similar insight into if a game will work on their console or not.
This is pretty interesting and I like what Valve has done here. So let’s dig into the details.
Deck Verified has four criteria that are checked for compatibility with Steam Deck. They are:
- ✅ Input
Does the game support full controller support? Does it use the correct icons for button prompts? Does the game automatically bring up the virtual keyboard when you need to type something? - ✅ Display
Does the game support the Steam Deck’s native screen resolution of 1280x800 (or at least 1280x720)? Is text readable on that scale? - ✅ Seamlessness
Does the title display any compatibility warnings? If there’s a launcher, is it navigable with a controller? - ✅ System Support
If necessary, does the title and all its middleware support Proton?
Valve’s been able to check for these criteria with the Steam Deck because it’s a singular piece of hardware and that enables them to check the legibility of text on a 7.4” screen at 720p or how a game on low settings will work with their custom APU.
But you might have noticed an issue. They’re not going to be able to test for input, display, etc. across all devices running SteamOS.
Instead, the new ☑️ SteamOS Compatibility rating is only using a subset of checks from the Verified results. Really, it’s just the last one I mentioned: System Support.
According to Valve’s announcement post, quote:
If a game and all of its middleware are supported on SteamOS, we will mark it as SteamOS Compatible. If not, it’s marked as SteamOS Unsupported. Please note that this rating does not include testing results for performance and input, since we will not know (and have not tested) how all titles will run on all potential hardware. We expect over 18,000 titles on Steam to be marked SteamOS compatible out of the gate.
One interesting side effect of this is that many games marked as “ℹ️ playable” rather than “verified” will be getting the “SteamOS Compatible” badge.
These new ratings will be rolling out in the next few weeks and anyone playing on the Legion Go S with SteamOS will see these ratings on store pages.