Valve’s Steam Deck portable game system, launching February 25th, won’t necessarily play every Windows game you own — but a brand-new release of Valve’s Proton compatibility layer, version 7.0, is making the PC versions of PlayStation Vita hit Persona 4 Golden, Nintendo Switch darling Monster Hunter Rise, and Xbox favorite Forza Horizon 5 playable. Heck, we might even be getting Apex Legends as well.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Monster Hunter and Persona were killer apps for the PlayStation Vita, and all three of these games are fantastic titles whose journey to PC we’ve been following with great interest. (My colleague Jay called Forza Horizon 5 “the perfect portable Xbox game” after using Microsoft’s xCloud to stream it to a phone.)
But there’s been an open question whether the Steam Deck would get games like these and play them well: Persona 4 Golden in particular has been notoriously broken on Linux via Proton, though the mysterious message “Valve is still working on adding support for this game on Steam Deck” did provide some hope last month:
Forza Horizon 5 was an even weirder situation: there, Valve actually allowed early Steam Deck hardware reviewers to play that specific game, even though it wasn’t officially listed as a compatible title and didn’t run all that well! Now, there’s confirmed support.
Between those and an array of PlayStation-first games becoming playable on Steam Deck — including new PC release God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Death Stranding, and Deathloop — it’s becoming an increasingly intriguing portable.
And while Apex Legends hasn’t been confirmed working in Proton and on the Steam Deck quite yet, we’re now seeing the first hints that the monster EA / Respawn hit might support it as well: Redditors spotted this commit at the Proton Github, even though EA never answered our questions about whether Respawn would make the minor tweaks to enable support after we contacted them on September 28th. I just asked them again.
And these aren’t the only new games enabled in Proton 7.0. Here’s the full list from Valve’s changelog:
- Anno 1404
- Call of Juarez
- DCS World Steam Edition
- Disgaea 4 Complete+
- Dungeon Fighter Online
- Epic Roller Coasters XR
- Eternal Return
- Forza Horizon 5
- Gravity Sketch VR
- Monster Hunter Rise
- NecroVisioN
- Nights of Azure
- Oceanhorn: Monster of the Uncharted Seas
- Order of War
- Persona 4 Golden
- Resident Evil 0
- Resident Evil Revelations 2
- Rocksmith 2014 Edition
- SCP: Secret Laboratory
- Wargroove
- Wartales
- Yakuza 4 Remastered
According to the changelog, Proton 7 also includes local EasyAntiCheat support (again, only if the developer has turned it on), H.264 video decoding, and assorted fixes for Sea of Thieves (another Microsoft hit), Skyrim, Fallout 4, Mount & Blade II Bannerlord, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Runescape, Castlevania Advance Collection, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Doom Eternal, and Far Cry, some of which fix game-breaking bugs.
According to Valve developer and Steam Deck team member Pierre-Loup Griffais, the EasyAntiCheat situation is still evolving, but Proton 7.0 apparently enables Star Wars: Squadrons and Knockout City as well.
Proton 7.0 is now available! Highlights include playable Persona 4 Golden, audio fixes for Skyrim and Fallout games, local H264 decoding support, and the foundation for legacy EAC support. SW: Squadrons and Knockout City are currently playable with EAC, with more on the way soon!
— Pierre-Loup Griffais (@Plagman2) February 16, 2022
If you’re a developer who wants to get your games to work on Steam Deck despite having EAC or BattlEye anti-cheat, Valve published a blog post last month that spells out the process and makes it sound easy.
