Steam Deck won’t have exclusive games, Valve confirms

When Valve announced the Steam Deck, it revealed a portable device capable of playing PC games on the go. While Nintendo Switch comparisons were certainly made, there was also a common question: would the Steam Deck have exclusive games? The answer is a definitive no.

That’s made clear by Valve’s Steam Deck FAQ, published for partners looking to bring their games to the PC portable. Valve gives a definitive answer under the question: “Would Valve be interested in having any Steam Deck exclusive titles?” Its response: “No, that doesn’t make much sense to us. It’s a PC and it should just play games like a PC.” There’s no ambiguity there, and Valve is correct — portable or not, the Steam Deck is just a PC at the end of the day.

While there won’t be any exclusives on the Steam Deck, that doesn’t mean Valve isn’t paying attention to what games are available on it. In fact, it’s reviewing the entire Steam library to check for compatibility issues, so our list of the best games to play on the portable could certainly get much bigger.

As for when PC gamers can get their hands on one, a recent delay bumped the Steam Deck’s shipping date to February 2022. Orders will start shipping out then.