In an interview with V on Thursday, members of the Steam Deck team told PC Gamer that all plans for the latest handheld portable gaming PC/console shipped in February are in order. In addition to discussing Steam Deck hardware and V Society's work preparing Steam Deck for other developers, V Society also shared some plans for its own games. The Dota2, CS:GO, and Half-Life series have all received updates that give them a better experience on the Steam Deck.
Multiple V-Society game development teams are involved in this effort, but each game makes different updates for Steam Deck.
"The Dota team is doing something very innovative, at least for Dota." Designer Greg Coomer said: "Just last week, they introduced a new model that allows players to play games using a joystick. The update also includes a return to the 4-player co-op mode "Aharim's Maze of Heaven and Earth," which is said to be great for playing with a gamepad.
Designer Lawrence Yang explains, "They call it experimental gamepad support because they're still looking for feedback, but players can now really play Dota with the gamepad. ”
Those hardcore Steam gamepad fans may have used gyroscope targeting in CS:GO over the years, but the Steam Deck update will enhance some of the adaptations and refinements in CS:GO gamepad support. Coomer describes these updates as updates to things like radial menus that haven't been touched for a long time. "Their team is really giving new touches and design intents." he said.
Coomer said that the V Society is making "a series" of adjustments to Half-Life, which have nothing to do with manipulation and are more about menu navigation and so on. "Even though the core experience of Half-Life games is perfect on the controller, over time, many other parts of the experience tend to either be left out or unable to reach the same level of completion," he says. "All Half-Life games will be updated in the future.
Yang added that the Portal game has been validated by Steam Deck and works well on new handhelds, but WDK 2 may receive some updates. "I think we're going to revisit all the V-Club games to make sure they work well on Deck."