Top 10 Unverified Steam Deck Games That Run Great

The Steam Deck is one of the most fantastic handheld devices ever created. It has many verified games that will work out of the box, and Valve adds more daily. However, don’t be discouraged if a game you want to play is marked as unplayable or unverified because there is a good chance that it will still work. Here are the top 10 unverified Steam Deck games that run great, with little to no tinkering required.

What Unverified Games Work on Steam Deck?

For a game to be Deck Verified, it must meet four specific criteria:

• Full controller support
• Seamless experience with no compatibility warnings
• Supports the native Steam Deck resolution
• Supports Proton

Failing one of these will earn a game the Playable or Unplayable tag, meaning it doesn’t have Valve’s official seal of approval. However, that doesn’t mean the game won’t work on the Steam Deck. The list below is the top 10 unverified games that run great on the Steam Deck, based on my experience as an early adopter and my love of tinkering to get games to work regardless of their rating. 

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 runs with compatibility issues and zero modifications. You can mess with the settings to squeeze more out of it, but you don’t have to. You will get between 45 and 45 FPS, and the only problem area is Saint-Denis, where I experienced a slight 5 FPS drop, but that won’t ruin your experience.

Fallout 76

I’ve spent more hours playing Fallout 76 on my Steam Deck, which kind of feels like our version of a Pip-Boy, than any other game. The performance in medium settings is excellent—you’ll average between 40 and 60 FPS. The only issue I’ve personally run into sometimes is that the game won’t exit to the Steam Deck home page when you quit. Instead, you’ll have to force quit the game, which is a minor inconvenience. 

Elder Scrolls Online

Elder Scrolls Online is the perfect MMO for the Steam Deck. It offers 45-60 FPS on high settings with no settings changes required. However, make sure to close the game launcher after you start playing because it will cause constant stuttering.

Borderlands Franchise

The only game from the Borderlands franchise that is Deck Verified is Tiny Tina’s Wonderland. However, all of the Borderlands titles work flawlessly out of the box, including multiplayer, making them a great way to replay the franchise from the start or experience the iconic franchise if you’ve never played it before.

Bioshock Remastered

Bioshock Remastered performs amazingly on the Steam Deck. The only thing you need to do is set the Proton version to Proton Experimental. You can do so by going to the game in your library, pressing the options button, navigating to Properties, picking the Compatibility menu, and picking Proton Experimental from the dropdown. In case you were wondering, the Remastered version added the ability to earn achievements, exclusive DLCS, and developer commentary.

Starfield

You can now play Starfield on the Steam Deck using FSR 3 with Frame Generation off. Pair that with the low settings and lock your FPS to 40 and you’ll get good performance overall. To help with performance even further, you should set the manual GPU Clock to 1600MHZ, set Enable Tearing to on, and enable Vysnc.

Spore

Steam has listed Spore as unsupported for ages, but surprisingly, it works out of the box with no setting changes required. Another surprise is that the controls work without messing with or downloading user-created ones. You can even sign into your Spore account if you remember what it was from back in the day.

Medieval Dynasty

Medieval Dynasty works out of the box without any performance issues. The only downside is that some of the text can be small but isn’t unreadable. What is truly great, though, is that Co-Op mode works, making it the perfect game to play with your fellow Steam Deck owners. 

Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas and all DLC work perfectly on the Steam Deck. You’ll achieve 60 FPS on High Settings for most of the game. I only experienced issues when using the Bloody Mess perk around many enemies, though the performance returned to normal after they all exploded. From my understanding, the game isn’t Deck verified because you must tap “Play” using the trackpad after the launcher loads. Another great aspect if you are comfortable modifying your Steam Deck is that you can download all the great PC mods onto your Steam Deck. 

V Rising

V Rising runs flawlessly on the Steam Deck. However, due to the nature of the game, you’ll start with 60 FPS, but like other building games, it will quickly drop as you build more and more. To fix this, I recommend locking your FPS at 40 to help lighten the load and save your Steam Deck’s battery.

Now that you know the top 10 unverified Steam Deck games that run great, you can play your favorite games no matter where you take your Steak Deck. Check out our Steam Deck hub for more guides like the Top 10 Best Steam Deck AAA Games to Play Now to find more games to add to your library.