The mechanism is the one Steam Deck has used since 2022. Valve’s compatibility team tests a game, then writes a category number and a set of result tokens into the app’s public metadata, where anyone can read them through Steam’s app info API. Category 3 is Verified, the tier Valve markets as Great on Frame. Category 2 is Playable. Category 1 is Unsupported. Those badge names come from Valve’s own partner documentation, which we went through in August when the frame rate requirement turned out to have changed.
Here is why the tokens are worth reading. Across the 130 certified games, 126 carry the identical four: the default controller configuration is fully functional, the controller glyphs match the device, the interface text is legible, and the default configuration is performant. The same four, 126 times. The tier below is where they start breaking, one at a time, and the pattern is not the one you would guess.
It is mostly the keyboard
Eleven of the 23 carry TextInputDoesNotAutomaticallyInvokesKeyboard, Valve’s grammar included. That is the most common reason a game lands in Playable, by a wide margin. It means the game puts a text field in front of you and never asks the system for the on-screen keyboard, so the field sits there waiting for typing that cannot happen. Strapped to your face, with no physical keyboard in reach, that is the difference between naming your colony and watching a cursor blink.
The rest thin out fast. Five games have a default controller config that is not fully functional. Five are not performant at their default settings. Three do not support the native resolution, three show the wrong controller glyphs, and two have interface text Valve judged not legible. One game, Cast n Chill, passes all four standard checks and is held back by a fifth token nobody else in the tier has: DisplayOutputHasNonblockingIssues.
Sixteen of them are Steam Deck Verified
RimWorld is Deck Verified. On the Frame it carries three failures at once: controller config, wrong glyphs, no keyboard. Vampire Survivors is Deck Verified and misses on the keyboard alone. So do Tetris Effect: Connected, held on default performance, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate, keyboard again. Sixteen of the 23 hold Valve’s top badge on the Steam Deck and a lower one on the Frame.
That gap is the useful part. A game that already passed a Valve handheld review is not failing here on graphics. It is failing on the things that change when the screen is on your head and your hands are holding two tracked controllers instead of a gamepad with a touchscreen sitting above it. One title runs the other way: Roombattle is Unsupported on Deck and Playable on Frame.
The one VR game in the tier
Arca’s Path VR, Dream Reality Interactive’s 2018 puzzle game, is the only native VR title in the whole Playable list. Its single flag is ControllerGlyphsDoNotMatchDevice. Arca’s Path is played with your head. Its own store page calls the control scheme hands-free and says your gaze steers the sphere. A game you play without touching a controller is one tier down because its controller pictures are wrong.
One entry does not survive a check. We are Eva turns up under the filter, but its app record carries no Steam Frame compatibility block at all, so the storefront index and the app data disagree about it. Call it 22 confirmed and one that needs a retest.
Look at it yourself
None of these ratings show up on store pages yet. RimWorld’s page displays its Deck rating and says nothing about the Frame. Neither does Beat Saber’s, and Beat Saber is certified. The only public surface is the search filter, so add frame_compatibility=2 to a Steam store search URL and you get the Playable list. Swap in 3 for the 130 certified titles, which is where our running count comes from. Category 1 returns about 283,700 games, which is most of the store.
If you are shipping a flatscreen game and you want the badge, the keyboard token is the cheapest thing on this list to fix. Steamworks has had an API for it for years, ShowFloatingGamepadTextInput on ISteamUtils, and the Deck made calling it ordinary practice. Those eleven games are not missing a feature. They are missing a call.
Correction, September 11, 2026: This piece called Arca’s Path VR the only native VR title in the Playable tier. Tetris Effect: Connected is in the same tier and carries Valve’s VR Supported category with tracked controller support, so it is a VR title too. Arca’s Path VR is the only VR Only one.
