Tavern Keeper's New Update Includes Full Steam Deck Support

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Tavern Keeper is one of my favorite games that was released in Early Access last year. Despite being early in development, the amount of love and polish in the game is impressive, and this management sim packs both great content and mechanics into its reasonable price tag.

It has been around six months since Tavern Keeper launched, and the game has only improved with every update. The first major content patch for the game dropped recently, and that was the perfect excuse for me to dive back into it. With more customization, full Steam Deck support, and a slew of quality-of-life features, it is an excellent upgrade to the game.

While previously a decent playable experience on the Steam Deck, Tavern Keeper did suffer from a few mishaps. The main issue for me was the lack of true interface scaling on a screen like the Deck, as well as the inconsistent controller support. Both of these problems are completely fixed as of this new big patch!

The new controller support covers all the tools in the game, and UI text can now be freely scaled. I really enjoyed myself playing it on the Deck now, and Tavern Keeper is deserving of its Verified status. I had no problems running Tavern Keeper on the Deck, and with a few adjustments to the TDP and graphic settings, you can even get a fair bit of battery life, too.

However, the game itself is just fantastic. I like games that do what their titles say on the tin, and Tavern Keeper is just that. You run a tavern in a flamboyant fantasy world, with plenty of in-depth mechanics and a gorgeous visual tileset to back that premise up. We still don’t have too many games where you get to run a tavern amongst the glut of management and simulation games that exist.

Despite being in Early Access, the game already feels like the complete package, with a vibrant atmosphere that oozes charm. Several fully voice-acted, narrative scenarios serve as an extended tutorial, with a sandbox mode that unlocks maps as you complete the campaign. There’s a lot of content on offer here.

I must commend the production value Tavern Keeper offers, because the amount of care by the developer team is in every orifice of this game. The growing depth of the mechanics you learn organically, intelligent and funny writing with the many missions during the scenarios, and lovely visuals all come together with some great jaunty sound design.

Orcs, Elves, and Dwarves all flock to the tavern to indulge in the pleasures of a good pub, and you must juggle their tastes and needs while maintaining enough profit to keep afloat. Tavern Keeper has fully customizable difficulty settings, so if something is bugging you, it can likely be tweaked to your liking.

The classic simulation mechanics are all in here, and about what you might expect from a game about running a tavern. You decorate rooms of the pub, hire and maintain staff, keep supplies up, and design food and drink items while mitigating the many curveballs the game throws at you. Unhappy workers can do anything from randomly setting fire to things to stealing, so you have to manage morale and worker conditions as carefully as possible. Infestations and adverse weather conditions can mess up your tidy pub, and not paying off bank loans can lead to some nasty consequences. It’s nice to have plenty of challenges while playing the game.

Tavern Keeper is in great shape and only continues to get better. The game is currently 20% off until June 1, and it’s the perfect time to pick it up.

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