The Elder Scrolls Online now Steam Deck Verified with Update 50

ZeniMax / Bethesda have released the latest major upgrade for the popular MMO The Elder Scrolls Online, and it is finally Steam Deck Verified.

Back in 2022 with my original test it did need some work to get playable, and the developer later announced in 2024 that it gained a Playable status and would eventually be Verified - wow, that took a long time for some simple changes. Because there really wasn't that much holding it back.

Four days ago, Valve bumped it up to Verified after re-testing it. They swapped it from the old Proton 9 to Proton 11 Beta by default too. The biggest issues were the launcher and gamepad input not available by default in any part of the game forcing keyboard / mouse - so are they actually properly fixed now?

Testing on my Steam Deck OLED with SteamOS 3.8 and everything does indeed work as expected. The initial updater for the launcher worked fine, no input issues there or getting to the main menu. And getting into the game all worked fully too. Even the on-screen keyboard to name my new character came up automatically. So it seems they have very much gotten it up to a properly Verified experience out of the box.

Feels a lot better than I remember it too, and that's with a few settings bumped up a bit higher than the defaults which are quite low. Playing it on Steam Deck is actually really nice, the controls really do feel fantastic. A great fit for the Steam Deck now.

Do note Valve's testing says "This game does not default to external Bluetooth/USB controllers on Deck, and may require manually switching the active controller via the Quick Access Menu".

Will be quite a nice one for when the Steam Machine finally releases this Summer too, an MMORPG that works well out of the box like this.