The Steam Deck is how I prefer to play the majority of indies, so if that’s your goal, it’s great. Watch performance videos though of games you are interested in.
You are sacrificing power for mobility and playability with the Steam Deck. I own both a Steam Deck and a gaming PC, and I use each for different games. These days, modern AAA gaming often can’t run on Steam Deck well, including some hits like Baldurs Gate 3 (in the 3rd Act, the rest is fine). However, 75% of my overall gaming time is on the Deck these days. The ability to turn it on and just start playing on the couch or in bed is fantastic, and the support for different control schema like gyro and touchpads make it incredibly playable.
A modest PC is going to push better graphics and higher refresh rates, and will also make some games actually playable, but this becomes a decent sacrifice in mobility and convenience.
If mobility is merely a bonus and your deck would be docked the vast majority of the time, I’d go PC, but I suggest seriously considering the convenience of portable play even within your home. The OLED screen is wonderful for years-old AAA games that go for 2 dollars on Sale, indies, and more. I’m absolutely having a blast with Crosscode and intend on moving over to Another Crab’s Treasure and Nine Sols next.
Here’s a gameplay trailer from 2020. It’s still in active dev, it just takes a long time and the team prefers not to give updates frequently, you can check the discord server.
As someone who played The Frontier and even finished the NCR questline for it, I’ve been playing London a lot. I do want to say that those looking for full New Vegas level roleplaying are going to be disappointed. There are SPECIAL checks, and traits do make a return, but by and large this is closer to Fallout 3 than it is to New Vegas. Checks aren’t that frequent, this is more of a return to Fallout 3’s “horror RPG” style where roaming and exploring makes up the backbone of gameplay with quests meant to take you to new areas and dungeons, largely.
That being said, it’s a great game. There are problems with some of the writing, the Strike Quest where the outcome no matter what seems to be a resolution of two individuals and not the much larger number of striking workers is a horrible depiction of labor rights movements. However, the level design is generally really cool and atmospheric, and a lot of the concepts are extremely fresh.
More than anything, it makes me super excited to see the release of Fallout 4: New Vegas, Fallout: Cascadia, and Fallout: Miami. It’s a surprisingly great execution on a non-US Fallout, and feels fresh, but doesn’t reach the height of New Vegas.
That last detail is why I am so thrilled for Fallout 4: New Vegas. NV modding is incredible, don’t get me wrong, but the visual upgrade going from New Vegas fully graphically modded to Fallout 4 Vanilla is stark. Imagining playing through New Vegas but with nicer gunplay and graphical fidelity has me incredibly hopeful.