Tried Hollow Knight for the first time on the Deck, it works so well!
I’m not even specially good at gaming but I thought Hornet (a Hollow Knight boss) was quite enjoyable and not that hard and I wonder if it has to do with the Deck controls, since everyone has mentioned how difficult that one is (I did find all other bosses very difficult so this is not a boast).
Edit to mention that Horizon: Zero Dawn is another one that I only tried with the Deck and it also works really well, though this one consumes a lot more battery compared to HK.
I am going to sound like an unpopular opinion but some games are just easier without keyboard and mouse. I personally have a controller for these games.
just want to say, if you have the choice to buy either the Xbox One or the newer Xbox Series controllers, it’s worth it to go for the newer one. Some of the buttons (the bumpers in particular) are way better on the newer controller.
Disagree on HZD unless there were significant updates. I was around halfway through the game when I bought my deck, loaded it up on there to see how it ran, and uninstalled after about 15 minutes of never being able to make it over 15 FPS on lowest settings.
It's playable, if stuttery, in town and in cutscenes. When you start combat it becomes a PowerPoint. Which is a shame, because I really really liked that game, but I finished it on PC instead.
Monster Hunter Rise has been scratching that particular genre itch for me on the Deck though. Rise was built for the Switch so it plays on the Deck like it was born there. Smooth as butter.
Now that I think about it, I had to tweak some settings for HZD according to some guide, but I don’t remember exactly what I did. After that, it worked quite well. Perhaps it wasn’t 60 fps but 40? For me that was good enough.
It could still depend on standards. For example people seem to say Rimworld is great on the Deck but I absolutely disagree.
Bloodstained is a top contender, I can’t say I first discovered it on the Deck, but it just feels right on a handheld, in a way that it didn’t with controller on desktop, and the Switch just isn’t good enough to run it at a passable framerate.
Mostly I’ve used the Deck to continue playing my primary games on the couch or on the go. Elden Ring and RDR2 look and play fantastically once you tweak them a bit.
Smaller games usually run perfectly out of the box. The only ones I’ve played exclusively on Deck so far are Super Pilot (indie F-Zero), Ultimate Chicken Horse (Mario Maker-ish), and Mark of the Ninja.
I’ve had Slay the Spire in my Library for a while, but only got hooked on it when I tried it on Steam Deck.
When I got my Steam Deck at launch, the first game I was hooked on was Elden Ring, which came out around the same time. I first started it on my PC, but got frustrated by the huge lag spikes. Thankfully, those aren’t a thing on Steam Deck!
Once you get bored of the base game, Slay the Spire also has an extremely robust and high quality modding community. I got around 200 hours out of the base game and then an additional 250 on top of that out of modded classes and setting overhauls.
StS: Downfall in particular is extremely high quality and was in fact so popular that it got its own Steam store page, like a free DLC would. Highly recommend.
Hades is a killer game for the Deck, I just can't get used to using stick controls. I put like 280 hours into M+K, it's a hard habit to break and Heat 11 isn't exactly the best place to learn a new control scheme.
My partner loves it though. They started the game on the deck so the learning curve is easier.
Nah, definition 1 right there isn’t inherently negative. It’s certainly more involved than otherwise necessary and seems somewhat driven by emotion, so while it skips the negative connotation I think this counts plenty well.
By now I have put it down but I was seriously hooked on Kingdom two Crowns for the last weeks. Very addictive and easy going yet still challenging little game.
That game is soooo good. The expansions are great too. I bought it on sale forever ago and never played. Booted it up on a whim randomly a few months ago and was totally consumed. Beat it so many times that I started researching speed run strats to see how fast I could beat it (which I never do). Can’t seem to beat it before the first winter like some people can, but I’ve beaten it just after so I’m happy.
Edit: also, fun fact, it has cross save support for the android version so you can continue your games on the go if you don’t have your deck on you.
• Always do your research about a game, always check what people are saying on the website before you buy it. Do not trust the rating system. We’ve had too many cases of game being labeled as verified that couldn’t even reach 30 FPS.
• Do not install Windows on it. Just don’t. You got a Steam Deck. Not a Ayaneo, not a ROG ALLY. You got a Steam Deck. The strength of this machine is entirely in its software. It’s why in my opinion there has never been any real competition to the Steam Deck as most of these rely on Windows which is awful and not made for this purpose at all.
• If you ever get a dock and plug it in your TV, do not change the resolution of the game. Let it run at 720p. The upscaler will do its job. Just turn on FSR in the Steam Deck setting for the game with the free dots button (or Xbox + B, if you are using an Xbox Controller). In my experience, you tend to get quite good results, and I’m doing it on a 4K TV.
• The case that the Deck that comes with is amazing, but it’s a bit fat. It may be an issue if you plan on taking it with you on trips or whatever. So here’s a good alternative made by the company TomToc. I have one, and I love it. It’s thinner and will fit into more backpacks while taking less space. However, know that if you’re using a case around your Steam Deck, like let’s say you got a Killswitch from Dbrand, it won’t fit. Also, if you pick this up, don’t throw the original carrying case away. Keep it, you never know.
• I never really cared for emulation in the past. However, EmuDeck is the shit. It is so good, so stupidly easy to set up. You can’t pass on it. It’s a must have. If you grew up on consoles, it’s a great way to revisit the past and also a great way to play older games which got stuck on their consoles generation, forever lost to time and eBay scalpers.
Some games.
As for good games to get you started on the Steam Deck, first:
• Aperture Desk Job is an absoute must. I am pretty sure it should be included with the Steam Deck, but I don’t remember if it was, but it’s a free, short, and unique game made by Valve specifically for this machine. It will show you everything this machine can do and familiarize yourself with every aspect of controls from the small trackpads to the gyro controls.
• If you want good examples of good optimization, I strongly recommend you get the https://store.steampowered.com/app/1817070/Marvels_SpiderMan_Remastered/. I will also strongly recommend you to buy its “sequel” (it’s more of an expansion standalone game), Miles Morales, which to me, while shorter, improves on basically every aspect of the base game.
• The Steam Deck is also perfect for playing older games which you may have never got around the playing. I played BioShock on it for the first time this year entirely on the Steam Deck from beginning to end. It can feel a bit dated here and there, but I can also tell you that its reputation is well earned.
• Speaking of all the games you’d never played before, I doubt you haven’t played them. For some reason I feel like you probably did, but if you haven’t, I strongly recommend you to play the entirety of the Half-Life 2 Trilogy on this thing. It’s been optimized for it with new menus and everything.
• A Short Hike is as short as it sounds like, but it is a really memorable title. It’s relaxing, it’s hilarious and it’s simply adorable. It’s a gem.
• Terraria may not look like it at first, but it is surprisingly well optimized for the Steam Deck. It’s amazing, and if you haven’t played it, you will probably figure out eventually why this game has such a cult following. There are really good reasons as to why this is one of the highest-rated games on Steam.
• Vampire Survivor. Because of course. I feel like at this point, it’s practically illegal to own a Steam Deck and not have this game on it.
• Reventure is a fun and creative title. I honestly don’t have much to say about it. It’s really fun, really creative, really cheap. Quite funny. I loved it, and I can only recommend it. Don’t try and look up guides for this game. That would be ruining the fun.
• I haven’t finished it. But Spiritfarer It is a beautiful game, not only visually, but in its theme too. It’s a game about death and moving on from past traumas. It’s emotional, it’s funny, it’s creative, it’s just full of heart. I can promise that you will get attached to every character, but I can guarantee you that you will get attached to some, and that you will promise yourself that you won’t cry, but you fucking will! And you will love it.
• There is nothing quite like The Long Dark. You may believe you played survival games before, but this one is entirely different. I cannot recommend this enough. You really have to play it to get it. In a sea of bad and generic survival games, this one stands out as being serene to the point of being therapeutic while also being able to be ruthless and terrifying. This game isn’t particularly hard to run, but however, it doesn’t seem to like the Steam Deck very much? The frame rate is oddly unstable so I would recommend you to lock it at 30, then it won’t move at all it will be perfectly locked. It’s an issue that needs fixing.
I will conclude with this, the Steam Deck is not your PC with a 4090 in it. This is a low powered handheld machine. If I were you, I wouldn’t expect it to be reliable when it comes to newer AAA games. And that’s not only due to the power these game demands, but also to the absolutely dog shit optimization we seem to get with them nowadays.
I found that the Steam Deck is a perfect machine for me to expand my horizons. So my final recommendation would be for you to look towards indie games in general. These will be the best for the Steam Deck, but you may also find that these will be the best in general.
Thank you so much for your detailed suggestions and recommendations! I am very excited to get my hands on my Deck and start playing. My wishlist has only grown and grown.
Speaking of Spider-man: I actually played through that when it first came out on PS4, but I’ve been itching to get back into it - and the Miles Morales game seems really cool!
If you haven’t played Miles, then skip the original on the Steam Deck and go straight for that one. It’s shorter and denser, but also, I think it improves on everything the first game did.
Yeah I haven’t even made an account on Epic to get free games from there. Valve almost single handedly made Linux a viable gaming platform and I’m grateful for that (I know wine has existed far longer than proton, but the difference before and after proton is day and night).
Even before Proton Valve was heavily invested in Linux gaming.
SteamOS has been around way longer than Proton, and the Steam Client had a native Linux version for such a long time, I don’t even remember when it was published. Also, the Steam Linux Runtime is something worth mentioning - it is a common base that game developers can target instead of the various different distributions.
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