Steam Deck nears 300 ‘Verified’ games as testing gathers pace

polygon.com:

Steam Deck launches in two weeks, and it seems as though Valve is ramping up the testing program for its new handheld device. In the past week, more than 150 games have been awarded Verified status in Valve’s official rating system. That brings the total to 294, according to SteamDB’s tracking list (via RPS and Gaming on Linux).

A Verified rating means a game is fully compatible with the Linux-based portable gaming PC: “a great, smooth experience on Deck,” according to Valve. Games can also be rated Playable — meaning they will run but may have unoptimized elements such as control schemes or small text — and Unsupported.

The testing program is no small undertaking for Valve. The Steam storefront lists more than 60,000 games, and it’s currently growing at the rate of around 10,000 a year. It’s fair to assume that Valve’s testers will never be able to catch up, never mind keep up. However, even if Valve can only guarantee a good experience on a tiny fraction of its enormous catalog, it will still represent an unprecedented software line-up for a handheld console.

Highlights of the current Verified list include God of War, Vampire Survivors,Psychonauts 2, Sekiro, Horizon Zero Dawn, FTL: Faster Than Light, Return of the Obra Dinn, several Yakuza games, Desperados 3, Tetris Effect, Death Stranding, Art of Rally, and Okami HD. Having access to all of those on a handheld is a pretty tempting prospect.

SteamDB also lists 193 games as Playable on Steam Deck, including The Witcher 3, Inscryption and Valheim. Only 60 games have been found to be incompatible and given an Unsupported rating, including Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Persona 4 Golden and Fall Guys.