It’s hard to imagine that The Elder Scrolls Online is more than ten years old at this point, yet the Bethesda RPG is still able to draw in thousands of players. If you’re playing the game on PC, you may be interested to know that it’s now been made compatible with the Steam Deck. However, it’s listed as “playable” rather than “verified.”
What does The Elder Scrolls Online being Steam Deck ‘playable’ mean?
As announced on its official website, The Elder Scrolls Online can now be played on Valve‘s mobile gaming device. However, the official announcement goes on to say that a future update is needed before it can be fully verified for the system. Currently, the fact that it’s considered playable means the game will run as intended (mostly), but fans “might encounter some unexpected UI issues.” This is essentially the difference between “verified” and “playable” when it comes to the Deck.
If you take a look at the game’s Steam page, you can see how compatible ESO actually is. The listing suggests there may be some misgivings when playing on the Deck, such as having to manually enable controller support, or “invoking the on-screen keyboard” in order to enter text.
However, it will run with “all functionality” being present, but a patch is likely in the works that will give it the full verified status, though it’s not clear when that’s likely to be rolled out.
The Elder Scrolls Online was released in April 2014, representing something of a departure for Bethesda, which typically specializes in offering single-player experiences, such as those in Skyrim or Fallout 4. However, over the years, the developer has branched out into more online/multiplayer territory, Fallout 76 being the obvious example.
Of course, what many fans are eager for at this point is the follow-up to the epic Elder Scrolls 5, which originally came out way back in 2011. While the studio is no doubt hard at work on it, it could be a long wait before we see TES6 make an appearance.
