Valve’s new Steam Machine verification system is silent on these Steam Deck-busters

Thus far, every such graphically unsupported Steam Deck game we’ve found on the Steam store is currently listed with an “Unknown” Steam Machine compatibility status. For all of these titles, Valve merely says it is “still learning about” the game and that “we do not currently have further information regarding Steam Machine compatibility.”

That’s a shame, because many of these games that struggle on the Steam Deck can no doubt run just fine on the much more powerful Steam Machine hardware. And new Steam Machine owners will surely want to know whether their fresh living room box can play these games, many of which have appeared on Steam’s Top Sellers list (either currently or in the past).

We were just wondering…

There is some good news for Steam Machine users in last night’s Verification update, though. Games with text that is too small to read on the Steam Deck are perfectly fine when played on a big TV. That means Steam Deck “Playable” games like 007: First Light and Lies of P get bumped up to “Verified” status on the Steam Machine. But games that Valve bumps down to “Playable” on Steam Deck for requiring an on-screen keyboard still get a similar warning on the Steam Machine, so you might want to keep a wireless keyboard nearby on your couch.

We’ve included a list of nearly two dozen games we’ve found that Valve says can run on SteamOS but can’t run well on Steam Deck, and that Valve has yet to test on the Steam Machine. Hopefully they’ll get the helpful up or down Steam Machine rating they deserve soon (a Valve representative was unavailable to immediately respond to a request for comment from Ars).

A (very partial) list of SteamOS-compatible games with “Unknown” Steam Machine compatibility (and “Unsupported” Steam Deck status due to graphical requirements):