Valve shoots down apparent Steam Deck 2 leak

Valve employees have categorically denied an apparent leak that said a powerful new handheld was on the way

Valve

CES is in full swing as of today, and as with every year, that means we’re going to see a lot of announcements for upcoming tech and almost as many leaks. One such leak – or apparent leak at least – suggested that the announcement of a new, more powerful Steam Deck was imminent. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. 

According to a report from Videocardz, AMD will be announcing the Ryzen Z2 series of processors at CES. These processors are gaming-focused APUs designed primarily for mobile devices, like the Lenovo Legion Go, the Asus ROG Ally, and yes, the Steam Deck. 

The report says that AMD claimed that the Ryzen Z2 will be featured in devices from Lenovo, Asus, and Valve, leading many to believe that a new Steam Deck with the Ryzen Z2 would be announced soon. Valve has shot that down, though in a post on Bluesky that has categorically ruled out the possibility. 

“There is and will be no Z2 Steam Deck,” wrote Piere-Loup Griffais, a Valve employee working primarily on the Steam Deck and SteamOS. “Guessing the slide was meant to say the series is meant for products like that, not announcing anything specific.” 

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This isn’t particularly surprising, given Valve’s history of denying a Steam Deck successor. Just a few months ago, Valve says there wouldn’t be a new Steam Deck every year, as it’s “not fair” for customers. Company representatives said that there wouldn’t be a new handheld PC from Valve until there was a “generational leap in computing without sacrificing battery life,” which is definitely still quite a way away. 

“Obviously we'd love to get even more performance in the same power envelope, but that technology doesn't exist yet," Valve designer Yazan Aldehayyat said at the time. "That's what I think we'd call a Steam Deck 2.0.”