Can you play Deadlock on Steam Deck? Valve gives new update

Can you play Deadlock on the Steam Deck? We spoke to Valve directly to learn more about the hero shooter MOBA’s compatibility on the handheld system.

The promise of the Steam Deck is that you can essentially take your Steam library with you on the go. No matter the style of game, there’s bound to be a way to run it on the powerful handheld system.

From shooters to strategy games, players have enjoyed it all on their Steam Decks over the years, but with each new release, the question always remains. Is the hot new flavor of the month compatible?

So with Valve’s very own Deadlock now out in the wild and welcoming tens of thousands of players in early access, the question has been asked again. Can you play it on Steam Deck yet? Here’s what we know.

Can you play Deadlock on the Steam Deck?

For now, Deadlock doesn’t yet have official Steam Deck support. While you can boot up the game just fine, matchmaking is restricted so you’ll need to work around the game’s files if you really want to get your fix on the go.

Community members have already made solid control scheme layouts to use if you’re so inclined, though remember it’s not official from the devs, so there will be some quirks, especially given the complexity of a MOBA like Deadlock.

When will official Steam Deck support roll out?

Dexerto spoke with Valve directly at PAX Australia and touched on the matter of Deadlock being playable on the Steam Deck. For now, they simply reminded us it’s early days yet and the new MOBA has a long way to go.

“Deadlock is really early right now,” Hardware Engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said. “None of us work on Deadlock, so we have nothing to share, but as far as we know, it’s a work in progress.

“Like a lot of games that are at this level, it’s early access,” Designer Jay Shaw added. “I think as far as control schemes, compatibility, most games, including Deadlock, wouldn’t want to start locking in yet.

“They’re still working on so many aspects. But we hope that every game, including our own, will be wonderfully playable on Steam Deck, and we expect that at launch.”

So whenever Deadlock does transition out of early access, it’s clear Valve intends on doing so with official Steam Deck support. Though given how early things are, Deadlock’s full release could still be another few years out.

Though even despite the nature of the game, with its sprawling roster and dozens of complex systems, they’re eager to make it fun on the handheld system when the time is right.

“That is actually one of the things that was challenging,” Shaw explained. “PC games have a lot of different ways to interact with them, so trying to come up with a control scheme that lets you play all of them was very difficult.

Obviously the track pad is a big part of that, but a lot of people don’t notice we have a gyroscope, we can do gyro-aiming. The thumb sticks are capacitive so you can use that for aiming too. You can customize it in a million different ways.”

We’ll all just have to wait and see how Valve’s next game might embrace the hardware, but rest assured proper support is indeed in the pipeline.