Back in August, Xbox unveiled a new feature known as the "Handheld Compatibility Program" that would help PC handheld owners (and particularly ROG Xbox Ally owners) understand how certain games will perform on their systems.
Everything kinda went quiet on this immediately afterwards, but as shown off by The Verge's Tom Warren on social media, new "Handheld Optimized" tags have started showing up for various games when playing them on a handheld.
As you can see, these have green and blue indicators depending on how compatible they are:
The example here shows Double Fine's Keeper as being a game that "may encounter issues on handhelds", but then the information screen shows that's not really the case - everything seems to work fine but it suggests that "some of the settings on the handheld may need to be modified to play the game".
As mentioned in August, the blue badge is seemingly only intended to reference "minor" in-game settings adjustments:
- Handheld Optimized: This indicates games that are ready to go
- Mostly Compatible: This indicates games that may require minor in-game setting changes for an optimal experience
More information will likely come out about this over the next few days, and don't forget this feature is a work-in-progress - thousands of games have supposedly been tested, but we're assuming many more will join that list as the weeks, months and years roll on.
It's great to see this kind of thing rolling out ahead of the ROG Xbox Ally launch anyway, as newcomers to the PC handheld space will likely find it very useful in particular. It works great on the Steam Deck, and now it should work well on the Xbox handheld!