Lots of New Handheld OS Options

Handheld operating systems were in focus this past month, with The Verge confirming SteamOS is planned to come to the ROG Ally, Microsoft announcing a “compact mode” intended for handhelds, and official Windows support brought to the Steam Deck OLED.

Valve has been saying for ages that it wants SteamOS to be available on third-party handhelds. But competition in the handheld market has continued to stiffen, and Valve has been sitting on its laurels when it comes to opening the OS up to third-party hardware.

Until now, that is. The changelog for SteamOS 3.6.9 beta (released early this month) added some notes about supporting the “extra ROG Ally keys”, leading to excited speculation over what the note suggests. Valve’s planned support was confirmed in an article by The Verge’s Sean Hollister the following week.

“It's not like Valve is suggesting it'll offer SteamOS for rival handhelds anytime soon” Hollister cautions, but it’s another step towards that eventual goal.

It seems like it should be an obvious priority to bring SteamOS to other handhelds and ensure a majority of game purchases all come from Steam. SteamOS is constantly called a “console-like experience”, and that’s what a lot of gamers want! (See: the console market.) Meanwhile, Valve has previously called the Steam Deck pricepoint “painful”, making it clear game sales are the company’s goal. Bringing SteamOS to other hardware only serves that goal.

While Valve certainly has an interest in bringing SteamOS to more hardware, it’s never walled its users off from installing the OS of their choosing and, in fact, has supported the Steam Deck LCD with Windows drivers for years. The OLED was missing some drivers for proper Windows support, but Valve expanded its Windows support to the Steam Deck OLED in August.

But Steam didn’t hog the entire OS limelight last month. Microsoft released the Game Bar “Compact Mode” for Xbox Insiders.

“Compact Mode is a new experience that simplifies Game Bar,” Microsoft said, “making it more intuitive and easier to navigate on small screens, Windows handhelds, and when playing with a controller.”

It’s not exactly a handheld-focused Windows release, but it’s a welcome new feature and a clear indication of Microsoft’s continued interest in handheld PCs.

Steam Adds 'Mostly Played on Steam Deck' Review Tag & Filter

Valve made it a little easier to see which reviews are relevant to Steam Deck users by adding a “played mostly on Steam Deck” icon to reviews and a filter to go with it.

No announcement came with the update, but Liam Dawe noticed the change and reported it on GamingOnLinux.

The new system will show the total “hrs on record” in reviews as normal but if, ostensibly, more than half of that play time was on a Steam Deck, the review will get a Steam Deck icon. Hovering over that icon will show how many hours were played on Steam Deck in particular (pictured above).

The tag is a welcome addition to the tools players can use to determine how well a title will run on the Steam Deck. Between updates botching performance, publisher DRM added post-release, and what’s sometimes criticized as an inadequate verification process to begin with, more first-party tools have been called for by fans; with a popular Reddit thread that was covered by PC Guide calling for just that earlier in the month. Seems Valve might just be listening. Quick work, if that was the root.

Proton DB still offers more in terms of details, but this is great as a quick reference if you’re already fairly confident a title will play nicely.

In Other News…

Bloodborne Running on Steam Deck via ShadPS4 Emulator

There was some exciting news in Playstation 4 emulation last month with ShadPS4 making a whirlwind of progress emulating Bloodborne (via FanTheDeck). The 2015 Souls-like is a cult favorite and there’s been calls for a PC port forever. Seems emulation is once again beating publishers to the punch.

Progress with Bloodborne on ShadPS4 started in early July with a discolored video of the game’s start screen and later a fixed color start screen — a huge achievement in and of itself for such a coveted game on emulators. But ShadPS4 continued to announce improvements to the game’s emulation all through August, beginning with MP4 files playing in mid-August, followed by very limited gameplay with missing textures and what you’d expect from early emulation, and rapidly improved until we saw some limited gameplay that looks pretty stable!

This doesn’t mean that Bloodborne is necessarily ready to emulate with reliable performance, but it could be sooner than you’d have expected a month ago! Regardless, the pace of improvement is something to be admired.

But will it run on handhelds? Deck Wizard over on YouTube has been demonstrating ShadPS4’s Bloodborne progress on Steam Deck and the Ally X. Seems we’ve all some new old games to look forward to.

Valve Restricts External Links, Advertising Other Games on Store Pages

Valve updated more than just the review system this past month, having announced changes to store pages that prohibit external links and advertising other games on store pages earlier in the month.

According to Valve, it sees these trends as “distract[ing] from learning about the game itself” and in contrast to its goal to “help players make educated purchasing decisions.” This is a continuation of July’s changes to demos, which addressed developers’ releasing of second free game demos that would then link to the full version.

Developers who want to advertise related products should do so by utilizing July’s demo changes, setting up bundles, franchises, or developer homepages, Valve says.

The new rules came into effect in early September, and any URLs on store pages will now be hidden from customers.

Free 3D Printable Steam Deck Accessories

I had the privilege to write about some Steam Deck news at my day job as an editor at All3DP last month, when I covered the release of the Twystlock: a 3D printable accessory system for the Steam Deck much like the well-loved Deck Mate.

It might be interesting if you, like me, have been eyeing Mechanism’s new “Gaming Pillow” given the 3D printable “belly stand” available to test how playing in a rested position works for you. I think I need a better neck solution, personally.

You can find the Twystlock files on nowsci.com, but I also noted in the aforementioned article that the Deck Mate files have appeared on 3D printing model repository Printables. Mechanism has always offered digital files for its hardware, but I’ve had trouble getting them from its email system, myself. You’ll need more hardware if you’re 3D printing the Deck Mate, whereas the Twstlock is 100% 3D printable.

What Are We Playing?

Resident Evil HD Remaster

I love Resident Evil, but I never played as much of it as I would have liked. I vaguely remember watching someone play through the mansion when I was very young and first played the series myself with Resident Evil 4 on Nintendo Wii.

I have a soft spot for the movies (I know) and I’ve had RE5 in my library forever but felt a little wrong about missing the first few titles. I bought the HD Remaster a while back and played it on and off until I resolved to finish it in August. Lucky me, Capcom offered the whole series via Humble Bundle and I managed to scoop it up. I’m looking forward to playing through everything, but hoping the RE4 remaster (the only title missing from the bundle) is cheap this Halloween.