Waiting To Board The Deck

Was that a good figure of speech? Probably not, but it’s the best way I can think of describing this.

As you know, on February 25th the Steam Deck finally launched. It is something that I have been looking forward to since last summer. It was originally supposed to be out by last Christmas but due to chip shortages and other factors, the launch date was pushed into 2022.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get one at first, but then I saw the benefits and decided to play my order for the 512GB model on July 31st 2021.

Unfortunately, Valve has been quite vague about when you can expect an email. Back when I placed my order, I wish I could remember what queue I was in, I might have been in Q2 at that time, but when they announced it was being delayed another few months, my reservation now said “After Q2 2022”. I was disappointed because I still didn’t know what that meant and I was hoping that my Steam Deck would be a Christmas present to myself after a lot of hardship I endured in 2021.

Eventually, I got over it and just put money aside while also bracing myself for the possibility that I most likely won’t be contacted on February 25th that my model was ready to ship. I hoped it would be the last major purchase I make while I still live in my parents’ house.

Valve has begun rolling out emails every Monday since then in order of the reservations, but a lot of people claim they still don’t have theirs, I think it’s gone into the hands of journalists the most because they are automatically granted first dibs rather than genuine hobby gamers like myself.

Eventually, they cleared up some confusion that I am actually in Q3 and I can expect to place my order between July and September this year. My concern with that is my family was talking about taking a trip in late September and this time I am invited to join. I want to go, especially once my mom proposed a destination that has been on my bucket list since I was a little girl. I would hate it if I got an email that my Deck was ready to order and shipped while I am away, what if it got stolen? I mean sure, I could ask my neighbour to hold onto it for me until I return but it’s still ideal that I receive it before this trip.

Nothing is official however, we haven’t set a final date and location yet for this potential trip, and until we do that, I’m not going to book the time off for it. So, I may not have anything to worry about. It may even be ready for me before that time even if this trip does get finalized.

The other thing to note is that Valve finished shipping all the Q1 reservations in a month and are starting up batches in Q2. They even said recently that they were ramping up production and may even send out email batches twice a week, but as usual they are cryptic about it.

I find it hard to believe that I made a reservation in July and got pushed all the way to Q3. I guess it could be worse though. Some people who have already received their models have reported a few bugs while others are enjoying the hell outta theirs. I try not to read into that too much because I just want to remain optimistic knowing eventually it will be my turn.

The other piece I wanted to cover is that while I wait, the Deck’s website has also offered me a tool to view all the games I own that have been tested to run on the device. There are three categories: Verified, Playable, and Unsupported.

So far, a lot of great games that I have yet to play are verified like Control, Hades, Horizon Zero Dawn, and some of my replayable favourites like DOOM 2016/Eternal, Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight, etc.

What surprised me was some of the games that were under playable like the first Darksiders game while the second game and Genesis are verified. I looked up why the first game was under playable and most of it wasn’t minor things, but I was concerned when it said some in-game movie content missing, oh God I hope cutscenes don’t cutout if I were to replay it on the Deck, the first DS game has some of the best cinematics ever!

Also, Mass Effect Legendary Edition was under playable but only for tiny reasons that shouldn’t be a huge problem. The Witcher III also started under playable but was moved to verified not long after the webpage was launched.

I also didn’t understand why Darksiders III and Ori and the Will of the Wisps were considered unsupported, especially when the latter’s predecessor is verified both original and definitive editions. Maybe Valve is still trying to find a way to ensure the game can run. They would probably get a lot of complaints if some iconic games couldn’t run at all on the device.

I’m still waiting for my three Resident Evil games to be categorized as well as Detroit Become Human, which I haven’t played yet but since it has multiple choices and endings, it’ll definitely become a replayable favourite. My Elder Scrolls games are also to be determined, especially since Skyrim is a game I always come back to.

For now, I’ll just have to be patient.

👽Emily