Valve Releases Proton 11 Stable, Fixing Broken EA Games and Adding New Playable Titles

Valve's official Proton compatibility layer has received a new stable update, bringing a wide range of fixes and newly playable titles to the Steam Deck. While community forks of Proton exist and receive their own regular updates, this release comes directly from Valve and represents the version used by default on Steam Deck.

Proton is the compatibility layer that allows Windows games to run on Linux. It translates instructions typically built for Windows into a format that Vulkan on Linux can read, which is what allows most Windows games to run on the Steam Deck without a dedicated Linux build. Proton is open source, and while several community versions exist, Valve maintains its own version, which is the default on Steam Deck.

New Playable Games

Several games are now playable on Steam Deck without requiring workarounds that were previously necessary. These include Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 (the original 1996 and 1998 releases), Dino Crisis 1 and 2, Breath of Fire 4, Deadly Premonition, Warhammer: Vermintide 2, Metal Fatigue, Shogun: Total War, From Dust, DCS World Steam Edition, Gothic 1 Classic, and Unknown Faces.

These titles should run correctly right after booting, though if Proton11 is not already set as the default compatibility layer for a specific game, you may need to manually set it under that game's compatibility settings. This update includes a range of smaller fixes that improve stability and usability across several titles, though they do not necessarily make a game from unplayable to playable.

These include a fix for the red launcher issue affecting Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher3 taking a long time to exit, a fix for intro video playback in Crimson Desert, a fix allowing Killer Inn to properly connect to a Square Enix account, a fix for looping intro video issues in BlazBlue Central Fiction, improved dual monitor support in Space Engineers, and improved support for the Kodi media player.

Major Fixes for Previously Broken Games

Several more significant fixes are also included in this release. These address Far Cry 4 randomly hanging during launch, King of Fighters 13 Global Match freezing while playing gallery videos, Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty Master Collection hanging after the end credits, Chrono Trigger flickering in windowed mode at certain resolutions, a crash in Helldivers 2 occurring during high enemy count missions, random hangs affecting Killer Inn, and a black screen issue in Sea of Solitude when using Proton.

Specific Steam Deck fixes are also included, addressing Killer Inn's previously failing to launch on Steam Deck and other systems with limited temporary storage space, and Hollow Knight incorrectly registering the Steam button as the left trigger. This update also includes fixes for third-party launchers, including improved rendering in the Rockstar launcher, and fixes for several EA titles that had become unplayable following a recent EA Desktop update.

Several underlying components received updates as part of this release. Xalia, which enables controller support across different launchers, was updated to add support for titles including Red Faction Armageddon, Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2 Remaster, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 2, Star Wars Starfighter, Rocket Knight, Metal Slug XX, and Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two.

Updating Proton11 only requires checking the downloads section of your library.

If you don't have it installed yet, search for Proton11 directly in the Steam store search bar and install it from there. It is also possible that a game already defaulted to Proton11 during a prior beta phase, in which case it may have already downloaded automatically. This update represents a meaningful step forward for the stable branch specifically.

Anyone already using the experimental branch won't notice major changes. Still, for users who stick with default compatibility settings rather than manually forcing specific Proton versions, this update is likely to unlock several previously inaccessible or unstable games.