After years of being able to mod our games to our heart's content, many PC gamers would understandably find it hard to go back to the restrictions of "vanilla" gaming. Popular titles such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 4, and even more recent games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Resident Evil Village have such vibrant modding scenes, that it would be hard to imagine the fanbase without them.
Thankfully, according to an interview with IGN, Valve is fully aware of this, and won't be dragging you away from your 100 mod version of Skyrim anytime soon, as the upcoming Steam Deck will have "built-in" mod support, including through its own Steam Workshop.
Related: Gabe Newell Wants More Competition For Steam Deck, Sees "Long-Term" Growth For Handheld PCs
When asked about what the Steam Deck will be capable of, Valve's Greg Coomer explained that it would be able to do "anything that you would expect a PC to be able to do" – modding included. When asked about modding specifically, both he and coder Pierre-Loup Griffais elaborated that as well as downloading mods in the way you would on a PC, there will also be built-in methods to modify games, such as through Valve's own Steam Workshop.
"The version of Steam that runs on this is the same version of Steam just adapted with different UI and control", explains Griffais. "So all these features, team workshop, and all that built-in support for mods will be there as well."
Steam Workshop is a feature used by many games on the platform, which gives modders another way to share their creations, and makes downloading them much easier for newcomers. Launching in 2012, it now hosts mods for immensely popular PC games such as Skyrim, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2.
While the buzz around the Steam Deck continues, it isn't exactly clear when we will have one in our hands. The 64GB model is aiming for an early 2022 launch, and the higher performance models will follow shortly after. Anyone who's interested can reserve one for themselves – a method used to combat scalpers.
Next:Steam Deck Battery Life Is 2 To 8 Hours "Depending On What You're Doing"