With so many Steam Deck verified titles, there must be a few retro games in that list, right?
If you’re interested in retro gaming on the go, and the Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t quite your cup of tea, the Steam Deck is an increasingly strong candidate.
Following its 2022 launch, the handheld gaming PC quickly amassed over 7000 verified titles that could run on the machine. Given it is a Linux-based system rather than Windows, this was quite the achievement.
Of course, 3 years later, things have moved on. Around 19,000 games are now “Steam Deck verified” or playable… but how many of these can be considered retro titles?
Checking the Steam Deck verified retro collection
To find out, I used the search filters at steamdb.info.
Setting the filter to count Steam Deck verified and Steam Deck playable titles, from 2010 and before, the total is 386 games. Of course, this does not include latterly-released retro-style games, remasters, re-releases, and revivals of unreleased games.
386 is a tiny fraction of 19,000, but nevertheless it is a good representation of titles from the PS2/PS3 and Xbox/Xbox 360 era. And this doesn’t include the number of games on other platforms, such as GOG, which can be played on the Steam Deck with a tiny bit of reconfiguring.
If you’re interested in retro gaming on the go, you can install Batocera on Steam Deck and enjoy a full retro gaming emulation experience. All it needs is a spare microSD card.
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Christian Cawley is a writer and editor who covers consumer electronics, IT, and entertainment media. He has written for publications such as Computer Weekly, Linux Format, MakeUseOf.com, and Tech Radar.
He also produces podcasts, has a cigar box guitar, and of course, loves retro gaming.
