Proton 8.0 is here, and it brought Steam Deck game fixes
Helping hands
Valve and CodeWeavers have released the latest version of Proton, their compatibility software that allows Windows games to run on Linux-based operating systems – like that of the Steam Deck. Proton 8.0 is a biggun, smoothing out compatibility issues for over a dozen games (including the Dead Space remake and Forspoken) while making Steam Deck-specific fixes to many more.
These include an update that should make the repeatedly troublesome 2K Launcher behave itself again, while Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands gets improved sleep/resume functionality on the handheld PC. A crashing issue with Life is Strange Remastered Collection has also been nixxed, as has a bug that for some reason forced open the Deck’s onscreen keyboard when launching A Plague Tale: Innocence and A Plague Tale: Requiem. Most of the other addressed problems don’t look as funny in my head, but you can read them all in the full patch notes regardless.
Downloading Proton 8.0 onto the Steam Deck is easy enough: just search for it in your Library, tap or select the icon when it appears in the results, hit Install, and restart when it’s done. Begone, foul keyboards.
Giggles aside, it’s hard to overstate the importance of Proton in making the Steam Deck... work. As a concept, even. The vast majority of the Steam catalogue is lacking in native Linux ports, including most of the best Steam Deck games you can play on it, so a compatibility layer like Proton is integral to getting these made-for-Windows games working without much fuss. It evidently doesn’t turn out perfectly for every game, and even those that can run might do so with problems - I wasn’t particularly enamoured of the Dead Space remake’s Steam Deck performance on launch. But, but as this very update shows, that can be amended with future fixes.
In other words, do make sure to keep Proton updated if you have a Steam Deck. Or, indeed, if you’re playing games on a Linux PC. Proton 8.0 has tweaks that suit more powerful hardware as well, including a fix for ray tracing on Crysis Remastered.