Valve’s Steam Deck is finally out, and apparently Gabe Newell loves to play Final Fantasy XIV on the system. Well, Valve’s big boss won’t be able to do so right now, because the latest 6.08 update for one of the best MMOs on PC renders Final Fantasy XIV unable to launch on the portable gaming PC.
As reported by user Dreamboum on ResetEra and verified by PCGamesN, you currently can’t launch Final Fantasy XIV on the Steam Deck – it simply hangs on the game’s logo with no way to progress further. This seems to be something to do with Square Enix making Steam account linking mandatory, as we reported last month.
In order to “further enhance account security and bolster fraud prevention measures”, Final Fantasy XIV now links the player’s Square Enix account with their Steam account. This update forces players on Steam to have Valve’s client running alongside Final Fantasy XIV – which is causing enough problems on its own – but the new launcher doesn’t appear to be compatible with the Steam Deck at all.
We should mention that, despite Gabe Newell being a cheerleader for Final Fantasy XIV on Steam Deck, the MMO is officially marked as “unsupported” for play on Valve’s portable system. According to ResetEra users, it’s still possible to get the non-Steam version of Final Fantasy XIV working on Steam Deck, but everyone else will just have to hope for another update or a fix – maybe even with version 6.1 next month.
Nevertheless, there are now over 1,000 games marked as “verified” or “playable” on the Steam Deck, including previously unsupported games like Apex Legends.
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Final Fantasy XIV players, however, will have to wait for now.