Much of the tech world has its ears to the ground on anything related to the upcoming Steam Deck handheld system, which could potentially bring in a new era of mobile gaming. With Valve recently sending out the development kits for its device, the industry is on the cusp of getting to grips with it, and the community is edging ever closer to getting hold of one for itself. Until that point, word will continue to be drip fed about the device. With that, new developments are showing what the proposed user interface for the Deck will look like.
Uploading a number of images to their Twitter profile a couple of days ago, Pavel Djundik, the creator of SteamDB which often sends out rumors about the platform's big sales, has shown the world what the UI looks like for the upcoming Steam Deck. Those who already use Steam will recognize the layout as the most recent design for the PC platform, only the Deck version has been optimized to work on a mobile system rather than a desktop. Djundik does warn that this is still a work in progress, so it's likely to change between now and when it's released this December.
What the images that have been uploaded show are numerous aspects of the Steam Deck's operating system which is based on Linux. In the bottom left is an icon showing the "Steam Menu" text, which presumably works in a similar vein to the Windows "Start" button. There's also the main interface as well, such as the user's Steam library, achievements and playtime for a specific game, in this case Deathloop, and storage details for the device itself. It can be seen from one of the images that some of the text is not formatted too well, but again, this is due to it still being a work-in-progress.
Steam recently had a big update to its look, so it would make sense that the one on the Deck would reflect the version on the main platform. One of the most significant changes in the UI is the download queue, which now gives more details as to what's actually being downloaded, which used to be a source of frustration in the previous version.
It seems as though the Deck may not be just another handheld gaming system similar to the Nintendo Switch. With Valve hoping its mobile PC will open up doors for similar systems, there's a chance it could become a market leader, showing other companies that it is possible to carry essentially a home computer around in one's pocket.
The Steam Deck is due for release this December.
