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Is Age of Empires 2 Compatible With Steam Deck? Answered

How do you turn this on?

I remember waiting for my dad to come home in order to play Age of Empires 2 on his laptop. Trying to understand the game’s mechanics and immediately using all the cheat codes available was my modus operandi. And yes, my father couldn’t work on the laptop because his eldest son was determined to finish all the campaigns available. Now, if you tell me that I would be able to play Age of Empires 2 on the go, I would be overly ecstatic. Having said that, is that really a thing? Is Age of Empires 2 compatible with Steam Deck? Well, let’s find out together.

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Is Age of Empires 2 Compatible With Steam Deck?

The answer is not what you expect. Or maybe it is. Well, you see, Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition is currently officially unsupported. One would expect that this game will not be able to run at all in the Steam Deck. However, that is not quite true. You see, thanks to ProtonDB and some repository versions of the tool. Currently, it is rated gold in the platform. That means that it can run quite decently. Obviously, there are some downsides, like using the touchpad for a mouse point and click game and some are reporting that the game will be unplayable in multiplayer matches. Well, that is the downside of the game not being supported. Although, I must say that these reports come from specific users.

Related: Is Age of Empires 2 Cross Platform / Cross Play?Answered

Now that Age of Empires 2 is available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, it would be a wise move in behalf of Valve or AoE developers to implement an official Steam Deck support. For the meantime, keep visiting the ProtonDB site linked above to see any updates. Good luck!


Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is available on Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Please check out Gamer Journalist on Facebook to join the discussion and keep up to date with our content. You might also like to check out or guides on Age of Empires 2 Best Civilizations Tier List or Age of Empires 2 vs 3. Which One is better?.

Author
Image of Alejandro Josan
Alejandro Josan
A musician with a heart of a gamer, Alejandro's life has always been accompanied by adventures on Nintendo platformers, countless hours of fantasy RPGs and several third-party FPSs. Currently, he is studying Game Design and Development, preparing for a long career in the video game industry.