The promise of Valve's new Steam Deck is to allow users to play their Steam catalog on the go. However, thanks to the particular configuration of the new handheld PC's operating system, that promise may come with some major caveats.

As a Linux-based system, Deck's SteamOS has a somewhat limited selection of compatible games. To combat this, Valve has developed a feature called Proton, a fork of the Wine compatibility layer, designed to run native Windows titles on the OS. [According to ProtonDB, nearly half of Steam's 10 most popular games-Destiny 2, Apex Legends, PUBG, and Rainbow Six Siege-will not run on SteamOS. The cause seems to be anti-cheat software. In most cases, the games launch, but the anti-cheat system does not work, so you cannot log into multiplayer servers.

Valve states that Steam Deck comes with a new version of SteamOS and that they are currently "working directly with vendors to improve Proton's game compatibility and support for anti-cheat solutions. In short, developers do not have to go through the hassle of getting their games to work with SteamOS, but it would help if the anti-cheat provider did so.

We have reached out to Valve for comment on what exactly Valve is doing to improve SteamOS compatibility.

This is a really important point: despite comparisons to the Switch, the Steam Deck is still a PC. And Valve is also happy to let you tinker with the machine at will as a PC, installing Windows itself so you can get down to business at will.

Unfortunately, PC gaming always means that sometimes games don't work as expected. That's true not only for Steam Deck, but for any desktop tower you've ever owned.