Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga works great for an ‘unsupported’ Steam Deck game

Valve Software has a spectrum of support for the various Steam games that you can play on Steam Deck. Many games are optimized for the handheld and many more at least earn Valve’s “playable” badge. But so far, Valve has classified recent release Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga as totally “unsupported” on the Deck. And that means most people should avoid getting that game for the portable computer. But I’m not most people. I’ve played a handful of hours, and I’ve come away happy with the experience so far.

This new Lego Star Wars game is one that fans were hotly anticipating and for good reason. It combines that classic collect-everything action of earlier Lego games with a third-person action-game perspective. Developer Traveler’s Tales also gave the series a significant visual overhaul for this completely fresh take on The Skywalker Saga.

So then how does all of that translate to Steam Deck? Surprisingly well — especially considering the “unsupported” warning from Valve. Since a recent update for the game and for the Deck itself, the device can run the game at around 45-to-55 frames per second. That is as long as you are forcing compatibility and using Proton Experimental. Deck, of course, runs Linux, and that means Lego Star Wars isn’t compatible except through the Proton translation layer.

Proton has done an amazing job so far of ensuring that Steam’s abundance of Windows games run great on Linux, and that has mostly continued with The Skywalker Saga.

So then why has Valve marked the latest Lego game as unsupported? Well, I have had one crash so far. And Valve will give a game the “unsupported” badge if even one feature doesn’t work. Maybe it has issues with its online play, which is possible — I haven’t tested that. But as a way of enjoying this game whenever and wherever I want, Steam Deck is proving more than enough for Lego Star Wars.