Steam Deck Will Launch 80% of Windows Games Thanks to Proton

Steam Deck supports already supports 80 of the 100 most popular games on Steam. This is all thanks to the Proton software, which is a sort of compatibility buffer that enables Windows games to run on Linux-based systems - in the case of Steam Deck, it's SteamOS. You can find the list of currently playable titles on the Protondb website.

In addition to the Top 100 list you can also find the top ten and top thousand games on Valve's platform. In the latter case the compatibility situation looks really good - 75% of all titles are compatible. However, when it comes to the top ten most popular games, at the moment we can only play four without any issues. In addition, three of them are Valve games natively running on Linux (CS:GO, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2) - only Grand Theft Auto V runs perfectly on the Proton with a few minor modifications. There is definitely room for improvement and it would be good for Steam Deck if all the most popular games worked flawlessly on it. For the time being we can't play, among others Apex Legends, PUBG, New World or Halo Infinite on the upcoming portable platform.

However, getting hundreds of games working properly is still a great achievement, especially considering that not long ago firing up games on Linux involved a lot of brain scratching. Now it will all be simplified to one click or few additional simple steps to launch the game.

Valve wants to increase the number of games running on Linux and the company's ultimate goal is to be able to run the entire Steam library in this way. These changes are primarily aimed at future Steam Deck owners. If the popularity of the portable computer is high, Valve will certainly do its best to realize this plan.