ARC Raiders has been officially marked Steam Deck Verified, and this is one of those updates that means more than people realise. This isn’t just another indie getting the green tick. ARC Raiders is a big, multiplayer-focused game with proper anti-cheat, and the fact it works cleanly on SteamOS is a really strong sign of where things are heading.
Even though I haven’t played the game myself yet, plenty of people have, and the numbers say it all. ARC Raiders didn’t just launch with hype, it actually kept it. At its peak it hit around 482k concurrent players on Steam, which is wild when you put it next to Call of Duty’s launch weekend at roughly 100k. It’s rare to see a game grow like that instead of fading after week one.
That’s why this matters for Steam Deck users. Multiplayer on SteamOS can still be unpredictable, mostly because anti-cheat support isn’t guaranteed from game to game. Some titles work perfectly, others fall over the second you try joining a match. Seeing a game this size running properly on Deck, with its anti-cheat behaving and everything functioning as it should, gives people a lot more confidence in the platform.
ARC Raiders also feels like a natural fit for handheld play. The pacing, the co-op structure and the way the sessions are designed all work well on a device like the Deck. Verified just removes any final doubt about whether the experience holds together.
For me, this update is a sign that more big multiplayer games are finally coming across to SteamOS without compromises. ARC Raiders already had momentum and this just strengthens it. For anyone waiting to see if it would run properly on Deck, the answer is finally straightforward.
It does.
