In addition to Naughty Dog announcing it would be steam deck compatible, Valve started using it in promos for the Steam Deck. Some game news sites took this as proof that the port had Valve’s approval, and that the game would launch as verified. This was repeated by people on reddit, and had me thinking it launched as verified.
No it wasn’t. Naughty Dog announced it would run on the SD, but it wasn’t. It got verified only on June 13th. Just have a look on the history: https://steamdb.info/app/1888930/history/?filterkey=530
Did some searching, and you’re right.
In addition to Naughty Dog announcing it would be steam deck compatible, Valve started using it in promos for the Steam Deck. Some game news sites took this as proof that the port had Valve’s approval, and that the game would launch as verified. This was repeated by people on reddit, and had me thinking it launched as verified.