Steam Now Tells You Which Games Run Well On A Steam Machine

Since the launch of the Steam Machine a couple of weeks ago, Steam’s store has been oddly reluctant to tell you which games are tested and verified as fully compatible with Valve’s little PC box. But overnight, as spotted by Rock Paper Shotgun, Valve has updated the store with that really rather vital information. And yes, Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced gets a big ol’ blue tick for the miniature box of tricks.

Steam has long marked games with information on whether they’ve been verified as compatible with the handheld PC, Steam Deck, with pleasingly nuanced details on whether a game is suited to the device’s control schemes, if it features weeny text that might be tricky to read on the smaller screen, or just plain won’t work at all. The same sorts of information is now available for the Steam Machine too, albeit still rather obfuscated on the store pages.

If you want to know if a game has been tested and/or verified for the Steam Machine, you do rather oddly need to click on the “Learn more” button in the “STEAM DECK COMPATIBILITY” field, itself very buried a couple of scrolls down on the right, sandwiched between “Languages” and “Achievements.”

Click that and you get the new pop-up box with details about the game for three categories: Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and Steam OS.

The above are the details for AssCreed: Black Flag Resynced, explaining that “all functionality” in the game is working on default controller configs, that the UI will display relevant Steam Controller icons, and that “the game’s default graphics configuration performs well on Steam Machine.” (It also notes that the game is sullied with DRM that requires an internet connection for its first launch.)

This is a much neater version of how such information was previously displayed for the Steam Deck, and that’s had a tidy up too. It lists all the same details, and adds that the game’s text is designed to be legible on the smaller screen. Meanwhile, the SteamOS tab explains simply that it runs “successfully” on Steam’s version of Linux, but again notes the need for an internet connection first launch.

Mixed

For games that haven’t been tested on the Steam Machine, you’ll instead receive a message saying, “Valve is still learning about Game Name. We do not currently have further information regarding Steam Machine compatibility.

And then when a game is tested but doesn’t do so well, you get a much more detailed list of reasons why. For instance, I checked GTA: San Andreas, and that gets a yellow mark that denotes it as “Playable on Steam Machine,” but then notes,

• This game’s launcher/setup tool may require the touchscreen or virtual keyboard
• This game sometimes shows mouse, keyboard, or non-Steam controller icons

Oh, and while we’re here, let me show you the shocking state of Valve’s own (all-too-forgotten) Alien Swarm, that has been left to languish barely supported by the company’s own devices: