Buy the wrong game for your Steam Deck or new Steam Machine and you will not find out until you are staring at a black screen or an anti-cheat error code. Three free tools exist to stop that from happening: Valve’s own Deck Verified badge, the community-run ProtonDB database, and a scrappy tracker called AreWeAntiCheatYet. They answer three different questions, and conflating them is how people end up with an unplayable $70 purchase. As of early September 2026, AreWeAntiCheatYet’s own tally showed 640 of 1,167 tracked anti-cheat games, or roughly 55%, marked Broken on Linux, while Valve’s SteamDB-tracked catalog had already crossed 30,000 Verified-or-Playable titles. Those two numbers look contradictory until you understand what each system actually measures.
This guide breaks down what Steam Deck Verified, ProtonDB, and AreWeAntiCheatYet each do, how their rating methods differ, which one to trust for which kind of game, and how to combine all three into a five-minute pre-purchase check. It matters more in October 2026 than it did a year ago: SteamOS now runs on handhelds from Lenovo and Asus as well as Valve’s own hardware, and Valve’s Steam Machine console puts a Linux-based box directly next to a PS5 or Xbox Series X in the living room, which means more buyers than ever are about to discover that “it’s on Steam” does not mean “it will run.” Valve has already confirmed a second-generation handheld, covered in our report on Valve confirming Steam Deck 2, so the compatibility stack described here is about to matter to an even larger wave of hardware buyers.
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What Each Platform Actually Measures
The confusion starts because all three tools use colored badges and look similar at a glance. They are not interchangeable. Steam Deck Verified is Valve’s official, first-party certification. According to Valve’s own Deck Verified documentation, a title must satisfy requirements covering controller input, display configuration, text readability, system compatibility, and functioning middleware (including anti-cheat, if the game uses Proton) before it earns the green checkmark. Valve’s rating tiers are Verified, Playable, Unsupported, and Unknown, not the Platinum/Gold/Silver/Bronze scale that gets attached to this topic online. That scale belongs to ProtonDB.
ProtonDB is a community reporting site. Anyone running a Windows game through Proton, Valve’s Wine-based compatibility layer, can submit a report describing launch behavior, settings tweaks, hardware, and which Proton build they used, including the official stable branch, Proton Experimental, or the community fork Proton-GE. The site aggregates those reports into a single score per game: Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, or Borked. Because reports come from desktop Linux users as well as Deck owners, and from multiple Proton versions at once, a ProtonDB score can disagree with Valve’s own Deck badge for the same game.
AreWeAntiCheatYet, often abbreviated AWACY, ignores graphics settings and controller mapping entirely and tracks one specific failure point: anti-cheat software. Its categories are Supported, Running, Planned, Broken, and Denied. A “Supported” entry means the developer has enabled an official Linux-compatible anti-cheat path. “Running” means players have gotten the game working in practice, frequently through a specific Proton-GE build or launch flag, without official backing. “Denied” means the publisher or anti-cheat vendor has explicitly ruled out Linux, usually because the anti-cheat relies on a Windows kernel driver that has no Linux equivalent at all.
Put simply: Valve tells you if a game meets its certification bar. ProtonDB tells you how a wide community of users actually experienced it. AreWeAntiCheatYet tells you whether the one thing graphics settings cannot fix, hostile anti-cheat software, is going to block you entirely. None of the three substitutes for the other two.
Steam Deck Verified vs ProtonDB vs AreWeAntiCheatYet: Full Specs Comparison
| Attribute | Steam Deck Verified | ProtonDB | AreWeAntiCheatYet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | Valve (official) | Independent community site | Independent community/GitHub project |
| Rating tiers | Verified, Playable, Unsupported, Unknown | Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Borked | Supported, Running, Planned, Broken, Denied |
| Testing method | Valve internal/automated + human testing against a published checklist | Crowdsourced user reports | Crowdsourced reports, cross-checked against vendor statements |
| What it covers | Controller support, display, text size, launcher behavior, Proton middleware | Overall playability through Proton: launch success, performance, bugs, workarounds | Only anti-cheat compatibility |
| Catalog size (2026 snapshot) | ~8,939 Verified + ~21,067 Playable (SteamDB, Aug. 31, 2026) | Continuously changing; no single audited total published | 1,167 anti-cheat games tracked (Sept. 2026 snapshot) |
| Update frequency | Re-tested after major game/Proton/SteamOS updates | Updated whenever a new user report is submitted | Updated as developers change anti-cheat policy or community confirms fixes |
| Covers non-Steam games (Epic, Battle.net, etc.) | No, Steam catalog only | Primarily Steam, some non-Steam reports exist | Yes, tracks anti-cheat regardless of storefront |
| Cost to use | Free | Free | Free |
| Official Valve affiliation | Yes | No | No |
| Best for | Quick single-source buy/no-buy call on Steam | Troubleshooting a specific launch problem | Checking if competitive multiplayer will work at all |
| Biggest limitation | Doesn’t expose hardware-specific workarounds | Score can mix outdated and current reports | Does not rate performance or graphics, only access |
Valve’s own count, tracked by the third-party database SteamDB, had the Verified and Playable tiers combined crossing 30,006 titles as of August 31, 2026, against 6,848 rated Unsupported. That is a meaningfully different number from the 31,265 games SteamDB separately lists as “SteamOS Compatible,” a category that measures something broader than the Deck-specific badge. The overlapping, slightly inconsistent terminology is itself part of why a second and third opinion is useful.
How Each Rating Is Actually Determined
Valve’s testing process is the most structured of the three, and the least transparent in real time. Per Valve’s own Deck Verified documentation, the company by default tests a game’s native Linux build if one exists; if that build fails or shows significant issues, Valve falls back to testing the Windows build running under Proton. The checklist is published, but individual test logs are not, so a sudden downgrade from Verified to Playable after a game patch can look like it came out of nowhere even though it followed a documented process.
ProtonDB inverts that model entirely. There is no central testing team. A player installs a game, tries to run it through Proton stable, Proton Experimental, or Proton-GE, and files a report describing exactly what happened, including workarounds like launch options or config file edits. The aggregate score is a rough consensus across however many reports exist, which means a title with five reports and a title with five thousand carry equal visual weight on the page even though their reliability is nowhere close to equal. It is a strength for troubleshooting (“what did other people do to fix this exact bug”) and a weakness for a single trustworthy number.
AreWeAntiCheatYet sits in between. It is crowdsourced like ProtonDB, but it tracks one binary-ish fact per title rather than a subjective playability score, which makes its data easier to verify: either a developer has enabled a Linux-compatible anti-cheat mode or they have not. Valve’s Steamworks documentation for developers confirms that Proton supports Easy Anti-Cheat “without requiring any recompilation,” but adds that it “does require you to manually enable support for your build,” which is the exact gap AWACY exists to track on a per-game basis, since the anti-cheat vendor supporting Linux and a specific developer flipping that switch on are two different events.
Proton, Proton Experimental, and Proton-GE: Why the Version Matters
All three rating systems ultimately sit on top of Proton, Valve’s Wine-based translation layer, so understanding which Proton branch a report used changes how much to trust it. As of October 2026, the stable branch sits at Proton 11.0-2, following the 11.0-1 release on July 7, 2026 that was built on Wine 11.0. Proton Experimental is Valve’s rolling test branch; it typically gets fixes earlier but can also introduce regressions, so a glowing ProtonDB report that specifies “Experimental” is not the same guarantee as one using stable. Proton-GE, maintained by the community under the GloriousEggroll name, often ships extra codecs and game-specific patches ahead of either official branch, and AreWeAntiCheatYet’s “Running” category frequently depends on exactly this fork rather than anything Valve ships by default.
That branching is also why a “Running” status on AWACY is less reassuring than a “Supported” one. Running generally means a specific community combination, a particular Proton-GE build plus a launch flag, got the game working, not that the developer has committed to keeping it that way. The official changelog for Proton, maintained on GitHub by ValveSoftware, shows fixes landing in Experimental ahead of stable on a near-weekly basis throughout 2026, which is exactly the churn that can make a six-month-old ProtonDB report stale.
# Typical Steam launch options used in community "Running" reports
PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%
SteamDeck=1 %command% # forces desktop Linux to report as Steam Deck
PROTON_LOG=1 %command% # generates a log for troubleshooting / ProtonDB reports
The Anti-Cheat Problem: Why This Isn’t Just a Settings Issue
Graphics settings, resolution scaling, and controller mapping are all solvable problems. Anti-cheat is different because the decision sits entirely with the publisher, not with Valve, ProtonDB, or any individual player. Research aggregated by the compatibility-tracking site caniplayonlinux.com found that of a catalog of anti-cheat titles it reviewed, 66% of games using Easy Anti-Cheat worked on Linux while only 55% of BattlEye titles did, and kernel-level systems came in at 0%. That gap exists because Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye both ship a Linux-compatible operating mode that developers can turn on; kernel-level systems such as Riot’s Vanguard, used in Valorant, and Activision’s RICOCHET, used in recent Call of Duty titles including Black Ops 7, depend on Windows-only kernel drivers that cannot load on Linux at all, full stop, no workaround.
That single distinction explains most of the confusing cases players run into. Fortnite uses Easy Anti-Cheat, which has a working Linux mode, yet Fortnite is blocked on Steam Deck because Epic has not enabled that mode for the title, according to the GamingOnLinux anti-cheat compatibility tracker. Destiny 2 uses BattlEye, which also supports Linux in other games, but Bungie has not switched it on for Destiny 2 either. Apex Legends is a sharper example still: it ran on Steam Deck for a period after launch, but Respawn later withdrew that support after identifying Linux as a path cheaters were exploiting, according to the same tracker. The anti-cheat vendor being Linux-capable tells you nothing about whether the publisher of any specific game has opted in.
How Developers Actually Get a Deck Verified Badge
Developers cannot buy, request, or self-assign a Deck Verified badge through either ProtonDB or AreWeAntiCheatYet, because neither site has any authority over Valve’s own certification. The badge is earned exclusively through Valve’s Steamworks platform. A developer uploads a build, and Valve runs it against the published checklist covering default control scheme mapping, on-screen keyboard behavior, display aspect ratio, text legibility at Deck’s native resolution, and, where relevant, whether Proton can load the title’s full stack including any middleware. Community discussion threads tied to Valve’s own support channels describe the same fallback logic used internally: a native Linux build gets tested first, and only if that build shows significant problems does Valve fall back to testing the Windows build running under Proton instead. That detail matters because a game can lose its Verified badge not because Proton regressed, but because a developer’s native Linux build broke in a way the Proton fallback does not.
This is also where the three systems diverge the most sharply in terms of who holds the pen. ProtonDB and AreWeAntiCheatYet are both open to anyone with an account; a single enthusiastic report can shift a ProtonDB score, and a single confirmed fix can flip an AWACY entry from Broken to Running. Valve’s badge changes only when Valve re-tests, which happens after major game patches, Proton version bumps, or SteamOS updates, but not on a fixed schedule. That lag is the single biggest practical difference between an “official” rating and a “living” one, and it is why a title can sit at Playable on Steam’s store page for weeks after the community has already found and shared a full workaround on ProtonDB.
In Their Own Words: What Valve’s Documentation Actually Says
Because so much confusion around these three systems comes from assuming Valve’s position on anti-cheat, it is worth quoting Valve’s own developer-facing material directly rather than paraphrasing it. On the question of whether fixes developed for Steam Deck specifically carry over to desktop Linux users running the same Proton stack, Valve’s official Steam Deck FAQ states: “Will improvements to Proton for Steam Deck (like anti-cheat support) also apply to Proton on desktop? Yes, these improvements will make it to all systems using Proton.” (Valve, Official Steam Deck FAQ) That single line is the reason ProtonDB reports from desktop Linux users remain relevant to Deck owners even though the hardware is different; the compatibility layer underneath is shared.
On the anti-cheat vendors themselves, Valve’s Steamworks documentation for developers is explicit that support exists but is not automatic: “Proton supports some common anti-cheat middleware, including Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye.” (Valve, Steamworks Documentation) A separate page in the same documentation set narrows that further, specifying exactly where the opt-in burden sits: “Proton supports Easy Anti-Cheat without requiring any recompilation, but it does require you to manually enable support for your build.” (Valve, Steam Deck Proton Documentation) That sentence alone accounts for most of the Fortnite- and Destiny 2-style cases covered earlier in this piece: the anti-cheat vendor’s Linux mode existing is necessary but not sufficient, since the publisher still has to flip it on per title.
On testing methodology, a Valve-affiliated response in Steam Community discussion threads about Deck compatibility lays out the fallback order plainly: “By default, we will test a Linux build if one is available. If the Linux build fails compatibility tests or otherwise experiences significant issues, we’ll then test the Windows build of your game running under Proton.” (Valve, Steam Deck Compatibility guidance) That confirms the certification process is not Proton-first; it is native-Linux-first, with Proton as the documented fallback rather than the default path.
Outside of Valve’s own material, independent technology coverage has summarized the practical mechanics of how this translation layer functions for readers less familiar with it. As XDA Developers put it in an editorial piece explaining why SteamOS behaves differently from a desktop Linux install: “In the case of the Deck, it uses Proton to translate games made for Windows into a form that can run on Linux.” (XDA Developers) That framing is useful context for anyone who assumes Deck Verified means a game was rebuilt for Linux from scratch; in the large majority of cases, it means Valve has confirmed the Windows build runs acceptably through this translation layer instead.
Criticism and Where All Three Systems Fall Short
None of the three tools escapes criticism from the communities that rely on them most. Valve’s badge draws the most consistent complaint: because re-testing is not scheduled, players have reported titles sitting at a stale Playable or even Verified rating for weeks after an update visibly broke something, simply because Valve had not gotten to a re-test yet. The badge is authoritative, but authoritative is not the same as current, and treating it as a live feed rather than a periodic snapshot is a common and avoidable mistake.
ProtonDB’s criticism runs in the opposite direction. Because any registered user can submit a report, the aggregate score can be skewed by a handful of outlier experiences, particularly for lower-population titles where five or six reports determine the entire visible rating. A Gold rating built from three current reports and a Gold rating built from three hundred reports spanning multiple Proton versions look identical on the page, even though one is far more trustworthy than the other. The site’s own structure gives no visual weight to report recency or sample size at a glance, which means reading the individual comments, not just the badge color, remains necessary.
AreWeAntiCheatYet faces a narrower but sharper criticism: its “Running” category can create false confidence. A title marked Running because a specific Proton-GE build and launch flag combination worked for some number of community members is not the same as a title with vendor-level, publisher-sanctioned support. Anti-cheat vendors update their detection logic regularly, specifically to catch the kinds of unofficial Linux workarounds that produce a Running status in the first place, which means a Running entry can flip to Broken without warning after a routine anti-cheat patch that had nothing to do with Linux at all. Several of the switchbladegaming.com and commandlinux.com breakdowns cited earlier in this piece flag this exact volatility as the reason “Running” should be read as “worked recently for some people,” not “will keep working.”
SteamOS Version History and Why It Keeps Moving the Target
Part of why all three databases need periodic re-checking rather than a one-time lookup is that the underlying operating system itself keeps shipping updates that can shift compatibility in either direction. SteamOS has moved well past its original Steam Deck-only release; it now ships on Lenovo’s Legion Go 2 in a SteamOS configuration and on Valve’s own Steam Machine console, in addition to unofficial installs on devices like the ROG Ally through community tooling. Every one of those SteamOS updates touches the same underlying Proton and kernel stack that Deck Verified, ProtonDB, and AreWeAntiCheatYet are all measuring, which means a compatibility change on a Steam Deck can, and often does, apply identically to a Legion Go 2 or Steam Machine running the same SteamOS build. Readers setting up SteamOS on non-Valve hardware for the first time can see the step-by-step process in our SteamOS installation guide for PCs and handhelds, which covers the same Proton foundation this comparison is built on.
That cross-device consistency is a genuine advantage of the SteamOS approach compared with every handheld running its own fork of Windows with device-specific quirks. A fix validated on a Steam Deck largely carries over to a Legion Go 2 or a Steam Machine automatically, because they are running variations of the same base system rather than entirely separate platforms. It is also why the growth curve on SteamDB’s Verified-and-Playable count has stayed steep through 2026 even as the hardware landscape has gotten more fragmented: more devices running the same core software means more aggregate testing coverage feeding back into the same shared compatibility layer, benefiting every device simultaneously rather than fragmenting the effort.
Real-World Examples: Seven Games, Three Different Answers
Pulling specific titles side by side shows exactly why checking only one of the three databases leads people astray.
| Game | Anti-cheat used | AreWeAntiCheatYet status (2026) | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baldur’s Gate 3 | None (single-player/co-op, no kernel AC) | N/A — Steam Deck Verified, ProtonDB Gold at 95.92% positive | No anti-cheat to block it; runs natively well through Proton |
| Marvel Rivals | NEAC Protect | Works, per GamingOnLinux’s anti-cheat tracker | Developer NetEase enabled Linux support; needs a SteamDeck=1 launch flag on desktop Linux |
| Fortnite | Easy Anti-Cheat | Blocked | EAC has a Linux mode, but Epic has not enabled it for this title |
| Valorant | Riot Vanguard | Denied | Kernel-level driver with no Linux implementation; will never run without a policy change |
| Destiny 2 | BattlEye | Blocked | BattlEye supports Linux elsewhere, but Bungie hasn’t enabled it here |
| Apex Legends | Easy Anti-Cheat | Broken (previously worked) | Respawn pulled Linux support after flagging it as a cheating vector |
| Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 | RICOCHET | Blocked | Requires Windows-only Secure Boot/TPM security features tied to the anti-cheat stack |
The pattern holds across the wider catalog, not just these seven titles. AreWeAntiCheatYet’s own breakdown page, pulling from its live database, showed 196 games Supported, 276 Running, 2 Planned, 640 Broken, and 53 Denied out of 1,167 tracked titles as of its September 2026 snapshot, meaning only about 40% of anti-cheat-protected multiplayer games had any kind of Linux path at all, official or improvised.
Pricing and Hardware Context: What’s Actually at Stake
None of these three rating systems cost anything to use, which is exactly why skipping the five-minute check before a purchase is such an unforced error. The hardware they protect you from wasting money on is not cheap anymore. Valve raised Steam Deck OLED pricing on May 27, 2026, and competing SteamOS and Windows handhelds have climbed alongside it.
| Device | OS | Price (Oct. 2026, US) | Relevant to this comparison because |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam Deck OLED 512GB | SteamOS | $789 (up from $549 before the May 27, 2026 increase) | Valve’s own Verified badge is built around this exact hardware baseline |
| Steam Deck OLED 1TB | SteamOS | $949 (up from $649) | Same Verified criteria apply regardless of storage tier |
| ROG Xbox Ally | Windows 11 (Xbox full-screen experience) | $599.99 | Runs the same Proton/anti-cheat stack when SteamOS-adjacent tools are used, but ships on Windows by default |
| ROG Xbox Ally X | Windows 11 | $999.99 | Higher-spec sibling; same anti-cheat limitations apply if dual-booted to SteamOS |
| Lenovo Legion Go 2 | SteamOS or Windows 11, configuration-dependent | From $1,099.99–$1,199 | One of the first non-Valve devices shipping with an official SteamOS option, inheriting the same Verified/ProtonDB/AWACY stack |
| Valve Steam Machine | SteamOS | $1,049 (announced pricing) | A living-room console running the same Linux base, inheriting the identical anti-cheat blind spots covered in this guide |
That is a $789 to $1,199 purchase decision resting on whether a game you plan to play competitively is on the Supported side of that 40% split or the Broken-and-Denied side making up the other 60%. A single wrong assumption about a $70 live-service shooter is a rounding error next to the hardware; a wrong assumption about which hardware to buy in the first place is not. Anyone comparing the handhelds directly should also see our breakdown of the ROG Xbox Ally X20 vs Steam Deck vs Legion Go 2 pricing and specs gap before deciding which ecosystem to commit to.
Benchmarks and Catalog Growth: What the Numbers Actually Show
Three independent sources converge on a similar shape even though their exact figures differ, which is itself a useful cross-check. SteamDB’s public statistics page, cited by the compatibility-tracking site commandlinux.com, recorded 8,939 Verified titles, 21,067 Playable titles, and 6,848 Unsupported titles as of August 31, 2026, for a combined Verified-or-Playable total above 30,000. Separately, commandlinux.com’s own research noted that SteamDB tracks 31,265 titles as “SteamOS Compatible,” a broader, differently defined category that should not be read as identical to the Deck-specific badge count.
On the anti-cheat side, AreWeAntiCheatYet’s self-reported breakdown, independently cited by the handheld-focused outlet switchbladegaming.com in a September 2026 piece, put the Broken-or-Denied share at 59.4% of 1,166 tracked anti-cheat titles in that specific snapshot, a figure functionally in line with the 55% Broken-only figure from the slightly later, slightly larger 1,167-game breakdown referenced earlier in this piece. Small variances between snapshots are expected since the database updates continuously; the consistent takeaway across both is that a majority of anti-cheat-protected multiplayer games still do not run on SteamOS, even as the non-anti-cheat catalog keeps climbing past 30,000 Verified-or-Playable titles.
Valve’s own documentation underscores why that anti-cheat number moves slower than the general compatibility number. The Steam Deck FAQ states plainly that improvements made to Proton for Steam Deck, anti-cheat support included, “will make it to all systems using Proton,” which means fixes are not Deck-exclusive, but it still requires each individual developer to flip the switch on their end, which is a business decision, not an engineering one, and business decisions move far slower than patch cycles.
Use-Case Recommendations: Which Tool to Trust When
Buying a single-player or co-op game for Steam Deck or Steam Machine: Check Steam Deck Verified first. If it shows Verified or Playable, that is almost always sufficient, since Valve’s checklist already covers controller mapping, text size, and display behavior that ProtonDB reports do not standardize.
Buying a non-Steam game, such as a title from the Epic Games Store or Battle.net, to run through Proton on a SteamOS or Bazzite handheld: Skip Valve’s badge entirely, since it only covers the Steam catalog, and go straight to ProtonDB and AreWeAntiCheatYet.
Buying any game with competitive online multiplayer, regardless of storefront: Check AreWeAntiCheatYet before checking anything else. A Platinum ProtonDB score or a Verified badge is irrelevant if the anti-cheat vendor has the title marked Denied, because the game will refuse to launch into a match no matter how well the base client runs.
Troubleshooting a game that launches but crashes or stutters: ProtonDB’s individual reports are the most useful of the three here, since they frequently include the exact launch option, config tweak, or Proton-GE build that fixed the same problem for someone else.
Deciding between a SteamOS handheld and a Windows handheld like the ROG Xbox Ally: Run your most-played multiplayer title through AreWeAntiCheatYet first. If it’s Denied, a Windows-based handheld avoids the problem entirely, which is a real factor in the Bazzite vs SteamOS vs ChimeraOS decision as well, since all three remain Linux underneath. Anyone deciding which specific Proton build to default to should also see our breakdown of Proton vs Proton-GE vs Experimental for the speed and stability trade-offs between branches.
Buying a game as a gift or for a household member who isn’t technical: Stick to Verified-only titles. Playable often means the end user has to manually select settings or adjust a launcher prompt, which is a reasonable ask for an enthusiast and an unreasonable one for someone who just wants to press play.
Migration Guide: Moving From a Single-Source Check to a Three-Source Workflow
Most Steam Deck and Steam Machine owners start out checking exactly one of these three sources, usually the green Verified badge sitting right on the store page, and only discover the other two after getting burned once. Here’s the five-minute workflow that replaces that habit.
- Step 1: Before adding anything to your cart, search the title on the Steam store page and note the Deck Verified badge status, if the game is on Steam at all.
- Step 2: If the game has any online multiplayer component, open AreWeAntiCheatYet and search the exact title. Treat anything marked Denied as a hard no, regardless of what the other two sources say.
- Step 3: If AreWeAntiCheatYet shows Running rather than Supported, note which Proton-GE build or launch flag the community used, since you will likely need the same one.
- Step 4: Cross-check ProtonDB for the same title to see the aggregate score and read the two or three most recent reports, filtering mentally for reports that specify a Proton version close to the current stable 11.0-2 release.
- Step 5: For non-Steam games, repeat steps 2 through 4 only, since Valve’s badge does not apply outside its own storefront.
- Step 6: If you’re buying new hardware rather than a single game, run this entire workflow against the three or four games you play most before choosing between a SteamOS handheld and a Windows alternative.
- Step 7: Bookmark all three sites rather than just one. The habit of checking only the Steam store badge is the single most common reason people get surprised by a Denied anti-cheat status after the purchase is already made.
Pros and Cons of Each System
Steam Deck Verified
Pros: Official, consistent methodology; integrated directly into the Steam store page so there is nothing extra to open; covers non-anti-cheat factors like text size and controller mapping that the other two tools ignore entirely.
Cons: Steam-only, so it is useless for Epic Games Store, Battle.net, or GOG purchases; re-testing after patches can lag, so a badge can be stale for a period after a game update breaks something; does not expose granular hardware-specific details the way ProtonDB’s individual reports do.
ProtonDB
Pros: Enormous volume of granular, real-world troubleshooting detail; covers desktop Linux as well as Deck-specific hardware; frequently surfaces working fixes, like specific launch options, well before Valve’s official badge updates.
Cons: No audited, centrally reported total game count; aggregate scores can mix stale reports from old Proton versions with current ones; popularity-driven, so niche titles can have thin, unreliable sample sizes.
AreWeAntiCheatYet
Pros: Covers non-Steam games that Valve’s badge ignores entirely; tracks the one failure mode, anti-cheat, that no amount of settings tweaking can fix; distinguishes cleanly between vendor-level support and publisher-level opt-in, which most casual sources conflate.
Cons: Says nothing about performance, graphics, or general playability; “Running” entries can rely on unofficial, unsupported configurations that could break with any future anti-cheat update; smaller tracked catalog (1,167 games) than either of the other two systems.
Common Mistakes People Make With These Tools
The most frequent error is treating a high ProtonDB score as proof that online multiplayer will work. ProtonDB measures whether the game launches and runs smoothly, not whether its anti-cheat will let you into a match; a shooter can score Gold on ProtonDB for its single-player campaign while its ranked mode is flatly Denied on AreWeAntiCheatYet. The second most common mistake is assuming a Verified badge is permanent. Valve’s own process re-evaluates titles after major patches, and a game can move from Verified to Playable, or even Unsupported, after an update changes anti-cheat behavior, a dependency, or a UI element, which is why the badge should be checked at purchase time rather than recalled from memory. The third mistake is assuming anti-cheat vendor support equals game support, when in reality, per Valve’s own Steamworks documentation, EAC and BattlEye both require the developer to manually enable Linux compatibility per title rather than inheriting it automatically.
The Verdict: Use All Three, in This Order
No single one of these tools is sufficient on its own, and that is not a design flaw, it is a reflection of three genuinely different jobs. Steam Deck Verified is the fastest and most official signal for anything already on Steam, and it should be the first stop for single-player and co-op purchases. ProtonDB is the deepest well of practical troubleshooting detail and the best tool once something is already broken. AreWeAntiCheatYet is the only one of the three that will stop a wasted purchase before it happens for competitive multiplayer games, and the data backs up why that matters: with roughly 55 to 59% of tracked anti-cheat titles still Broken or Denied on Linux as of late 2026, the odds that a given shooter or battle royale title just works are closer to a coin flip than most buyers assume. Checking only the green Steam badge, which covers graphics and controls but not anti-cheat policy, is how that coin flip gets missed entirely. The fix costs nothing and takes under five minutes: check Verified for the basics, check AreWeAntiCheatYet for anything with online matchmaking, and use ProtonDB to fix whatever’s left.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Steam Deck Verified the same as ProtonDB’s rating?
No. Steam Deck Verified is Valve’s own official certification using Verified, Playable, Unsupported, and Unknown tiers. ProtonDB is an independent, crowdsourced site using a separate Platinum-to-Borked scale. They can and do disagree on the same game.
Does a Steam Deck Verified badge guarantee a game’s anti-cheat works?
Only for Steam games, and only at the time of testing. Valve’s criteria require Proton-dependent middleware, including anti-cheat, to function for a game to earn Verified status, but a later game or anti-cheat update can change that without an immediate re-test. For non-Steam games, the badge does not apply at all.
Why do Fortnite and Destiny 2 not work on Steam Deck if their anti-cheat supports Linux elsewhere?
Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye both offer a Linux-compatible mode that other developers use successfully, but Epic Games and Bungie have not enabled that mode for Fortnite and Destiny 2 respectively, according to compatibility trackers including GamingOnLinux’s anti-cheat database. Vendor-level Linux support is a developer opt-in, not an automatic feature.
What percentage of anti-cheat games currently work on Steam Deck or SteamOS?
AreWeAntiCheatYet’s own breakdown, current as of its September 2026 snapshot, showed about 41% of its 1,167 tracked anti-cheat titles in the Supported, Running, or Planned categories, while roughly 55% were Broken and about 5% were explicitly Denied.
Can kernel-level anti-cheat like Riot Vanguard ever be fixed with a Proton update?
Not through Proton alone. Kernel-level anti-cheat systems depend on Windows-specific kernel drivers that have no Linux equivalent, which is a fundamentally different problem than a graphics or input bug that Proton updates can patch. Resolving it requires the anti-cheat vendor or publisher to build an entirely separate Linux-compatible path, which is a business and engineering decision outside Valve’s control.
Should I check ProtonDB or AreWeAntiCheatYet before buying a non-Steam game for a SteamOS handheld?
Check AreWeAntiCheatYet first if the game has any online multiplayer, since a Denied status makes the purchase a dead end regardless of how well the base game runs. Use ProtonDB afterward to confirm general stability and find any launch option tweaks needed.
Do these compatibility ratings apply to Valve’s new Steam Machine console the same way they apply to Steam Deck?
Yes. Steam Machine runs SteamOS, the same Linux-based operating system as Steam Deck, so it inherits the identical Proton compatibility layer and the same anti-cheat blind spots. A game Denied on AreWeAntiCheatYet for Steam Deck will be equally blocked on Steam Machine.
Is Proton-GE safe to use, and does it affect these ratings?
Proton-GE is a widely used, actively maintained community fork, and many AreWeAntiCheatYet “Running” entries and ProtonDB Gold or Platinum reports specifically depend on it rather than Valve’s official stable or Experimental branches. It is not officially distributed by Valve, so results can vary by build, and it is worth noting which Proton-GE version a report used before assuming the same result on a newer or older build.
