Which games are unplayable on Steam Deck?

Valve’s new Steam Deck handheld PC gaming system garnered much excitement and curiosity from gamers following its reveal. Taking cues from the Nintendo Switch design, the Steam Deck is a fully functional PC, allowing PC players to take their Steam library of games on the road with them to be played wherever they want. However, as details about the new handheld device trickle out, there are currently some popular games that won’t work on the machine. So, which games are unplayable on the Steam Deck?

The games that are currently unplayable on the Steam Deck include Apex Legends, Black Desert Online, DayZ, Dead by Daylight, Destiny 2, Fall Guys, Hunt: Showdown, Paladins, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), Rainbow Six Siege, and Smite.

Why can’t these games be played on the Steam Deck?

With such a vast lineup of games available on the Steam Deck, some customers might hesitate to pre-order the handheld if their favorite games can’t be played on the hardware. These games are unplayable due to the anti-cheat software found in each game. The Steam Deck is Linux-based, and the anti-cheat software does not work properly with Proton and Linux software, so while you will be able to technically open each game, you will not be able to log in to the servers to play online. 

While this is an issue for some of the most popular games on Steam, Valve is currently aware of the issue and is actively working with Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye to get Proton support for the Steam Deck before its launch later this year.