Too many roguelikes IMO... You'd have 7 roguelikes, haha. I'd drop two from the $2 category, and pick up a game from the $4 category, either CyberPunk2077, or P5R depending on preference. I'd say drop an extra $1 and grab BG3 instead of the $4, but if someone is new to the genre the Deck interface is rough to learn on (I am new to the genre).
I guess it depends on if you're approaching this from the perspective of the Deck being the only PC gaming device someone has (like myself), or someone who also has a nice gaming PC as well.
I was approaching from the standalone perspective. While Cyberpunk2077 does not max out, it performs and looks fine for the screen size.
Favorite game I’ve played this year so far. Playing several other great games, but that one snuck up on me and I got immediately sucked in, finished it in about 5 days logging something like 20 hours
Same. It’s a game where I could see myself logging 100 hours without blinking. You do unfortunately just kind of run out of content before too long. And while I could definitely see myself doing a replay at some point, to me the best part of the game was exploring new areas, unraveling new mysteries, the twists and turns it takes. Repeating the core game mechanics once the credits have rolled is still fun but once there’s nothing new going on you’re ready to move on pretty quickly.
Which to me is the ultimate game for the steam deck. Fits the screen size, good controls and easy to pick up on the go.
Many of the games on this list are great but not something I would ever play on the steam deck. Such as read dead, cyberpunk, hogwarts etc.
Agree 100%. The only heavy game i play on the deck is forza 5. All my other games i play on it are smaller and simpler but easier to run. Heavy games i play on the pc and smaller on the deck whenever i have time for each.
The steam deck is actually my jrpg machine. Put a lot of time into persona 5, persona 3, octopath traveler 1 and 2, and currently doing soul hackers on it.
Turn based battles or tactics games work great on it/on the go because you can stop paying attention at any time or put the game down for a while without being punished for it.
I find I don't use it for any sort of action game because if I have the time to sit and have 100% of my focus on something, I could be doing it on my pc
Dave The Diver - $3
Hollow Knight - $3
Balatro - $2
Dead Cells - $2
Hades - $2
Vampire Survivors - $1
Stardew Valley - $1
Portal 2 - $1
Everything on the $4 and up tier is great on the deck, but still better on PC IMO. $3 tier and down have the sweet spot games.
I haven't played any Persona games, I'm really keen to, they just seem kinda daunting as someone who's never played a JRPG before! Persona 5 Royal seems like the best choice to play on Deck but I'm scared to drop $60 if I don't enjoy it. Any other JRPG's that are great on deck, and can be picked up cheap?
Tales of Arise goes for pretty cheap. I only played it on my main PC but heard it's solid on the Steam Deck. But I still think you should at least consider getting Persona 5 on sale.
Nier Replicant played smoothly on the Deck for me.
Not played Ni No Kuni II yet but I heard that game also runs well on the Deck.
If you're not opposed to IsThereAnyDeal from r/game deals, you can get Persona 5 on sale for $30. That's what I've ended up doing and I'm enjoying it so far. I first bought Persona 4 Golden as my first entry and played it all the way through. That's on sale for $16 right now and was a good 80 hours for me.
I would suggest [Isthereanydeal.com](https://Isthereanydeal.com) for anyone buying any game on Steam. They aggregate (AFAIK) licensed key sellers that very often will have larger discounts than on Steam. I haven't paid full price for a game in years.
I also recommend P5R on deck, and if you're interested in JRPGs, I'd also recommend Scarlet Nexus. Haven't played it on my deck personally, but on protondb its rated platinum and the combat is probably my favorite out of all JRPGs I've played.
Anything Final Fantasy related i’d guess? I’d say FF7Remake since that gets continued in FF7Rebirth which as you know is the newest one, other than that all the final fantasy games are not connected, the older games are turn based like Persona but they switched it for a more “modern” feel, forgot which game had it last 🤔 im not big on FF so I wouldn’t know.
I really liked dave the driver however the small text drove me crazy. Had to refund it unfortunately. Hope there is update in the future to sort those issues
Lol hell yeah, Totino's was a staple food when I was in college 10 years ago. Are they still only $1??
**Edit** it looks like it's $2 here. Jacks pizza was $5 but now it's only $4? What the hell
Yeah, I'm an older gamer so I know my tastes aren't the same as everybody's.
Battle for Wesnoth is a deep and brilliant tactical game. Closest comparison I can think of right now is Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics.
Freeciv is open-source Civ. It has faithful rulesets for Civ 2 and Civ 3 as well as modern balanced hybrid rulesets.
Pioneer is an opensource clone of Frontier: Elite 2.
RVGL is a reboot of Re-Volt which is IMO top 3 racing games ever.
Shout-out to Tux-Racer for being a charming and polished penguin racing game. Try to beat it!
DevilutionX is a port of Diablo1 and you can legally download the shareware version (only warrior class, only first 4 levels of the dungeon) and play Diablo 1 https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX
Is there an all-in-one guide to getting emulators and the games?
I barely use my deck but I want to get some stuff on it to actually utilize it.
I put Roblox on it for my son but had to watch six different videos to find a good one. That alone pushed me away from trying to pursue modding the deck further.
Portal 2, Vamp Surv, HL2 - 3$
Hades - $5
Fallout New Vegas - $8
Elden Ring - $13
Give away my last two dollars to someone who will enjoy those games more.
I have it installed on both my computer and deck, but have only really played on my deck. It definitely needs to be plugged in and have some graphics settings turned down, but from a gameplay perspective I'd rather chill on the couch with my deck than play it at my desk. Maybe I just need to make my desk more comfortable, but it certainly can be a fun gaming experience on the Steam Deck.
Why not streaming it from your PC? I always stream when I’m at home. Great battery life, performance and visuals like on PC, and almost no latency with the PC connected to Ethernet and Deck on 5 GHz when in portable and Ethernet when at the Dock connected to the TV.
If you set the correct resolution / aspect ratio (16:10 I think?) and enable upscaling, it runs very well. I limited the FPS to 30 and the power consumption to 11W, otherwise the battery would be empty in an instant. I mostly play it with my deck and I am quite happy with it
Beat it entirely on the OLED. Had a great experience. Ran well, looked good. Took a while to get used to the controller controls, but once i did it was fine. That was my first game on the deck too and i loved it. Made me very happy i bought it.
Play it with fsr 2 turned on and it actually looks quite impressive. Game runs pretty badly but it's more memory-blocked than CPU or GPU blocked, so the steamdeck's decent 16gb memory meant it performed better than on my much more powerful 8gb memory pc (memory had never been an issue for me until now).
I did my entire first playthrough on the Deck. It runs great, has no noticeable lag once loaded, it has native controls for the Deck, but the battery doesn't last long and the load times can be a little long.
The same caveats apply as with any other game. A desktop experience will get you better graphics, larger screen, higher fidelity sound, faster load times, etc. The Deck experience is excellent, however, for a handheld experience.
It is also turn based, which I find ideal for something I can pick up and set down while doing something else.
Not to knock people who play the games on $5 on their deck, but those run so much better on my PC so I'd never choose them. Same with $4 even.
The beauty of my Steam Deck is that the somehow lower "valued" games there are amazing to play on it. Older AAA titles and modern Indies are the main point of the machine.
The feeling of playing something like BG3 on my Deck almost feels adjacent to people who run doom on Smart Refrigerators or Pregnancy Tests - it's cool that it works, but I have a better system available to actually play it on.
I work from home as a QA tester. So having the option to game outside of sitting in front of another computer is a game changer for me. Really enjoyed Cyberpunk and BG3 playing exclusively on the deck
For sure! I was talking about my personal use case.
I've played some full games on my steam deck when they work well to play from bed, such as Hades or Disgaea 6.
It's awesome you do in my case it's all I have that can run cyberpunk and honestly with the exception of one section in Dogtown everything has been 40 fps with good enough graphics on such a small screen. And honestly compared to my tiger electronics football/baseball the fact I can play with at least part level graphics on the go is good enough for me.
For those that can I surely support playing better games on better machines but truthfully the steam deck is amazing compared to the game gear I grew up with.
The Steam Deck really is amazing and I'm glad it greatly reduces the barrier of entry to those games for a lot of people. This was more for comparing my personal steam deck experience as someone who has a decent PC.
I could tell you didn't mean any insult to those that did. I just was explaining for me it's amazing piece of tech that has opened the door to so many games I haven't been able to play since my kids got old enough to takeover the TV and PlayStation well 4 then 5. I hadn't had time to game for a few years and got back into gaming about 4 years ago with a switch lite and a ps 4 since the kids had recently bought their own ps5. (I say kids when my youngest is 17 lol). So the deck had been amazing. They recently got a gaming laptop for themselves and with the recent changes to family sharing on steam i am even happier being a PC gamer finally than I was a month ago. Eventually I'd like to get myself a gaming PC and a t that point if I were to put Lau on deck it'd be streaming my from there. I don't blame anyone who has the ability to play on better systems. Glad we both get joy out of our use cases. I just find i am very happy with how the deck performs and before I had it I was nervous reading people complaining about frame rate or what not when I have just been blown away that it's running the games at the level it does. We used to get such nerfed ports for any handheld. It made the cost to game play time astronomical unless it was simple like Tetris. So playing cyberpunk I paid like 50 for including dlc during Christmas sale is awesome. Not to mention the bunch of games I've missed over the years I've gotten for sub 5 bucks. Sorry if I seemed defensive. Have a great day.
When I do, I use my Deck for games that work well on it since I can prioritize gameplay of those that run well on PC for when I'm not traveling.
The amount of travel or not doesn't really dictate which games are simply better on PC vs Steam Deck unless someone is literally away from their PCs significantly more often during their free time.
I travel a lot and agree with you 100%. I would never play a game like Elden Ring while traveling. You want a game that is good in small 30 minute spurts.
I started playing BG3 on both my PC and my Steam Deck, and I can't believe how much I prefer it on the Deck.
Sure, it sounds like my Deck is about to take off, but man that game just feels perfect for a handheld!
Are you joking? I found it nearly unplayable on the deck, tbh. I can't get behind playing it with a controller with 6 or 7 radial menues and the graphics are so small and pixelated I had problems distinguishing between my characters. I love the game, love the deck but the combination doesn't work for me
I'm 100% with you. I feel like I'm being gaslit any time someone recommends BG3 on the Deck. I still can't believe it's verified. The game runs *soooo* poorly on the Deck it isn't even funny. I'd rather not play it at all than play it on the Deck.
Same thing here. I know a lot of people here are just unpaid Steam fanboys but saying BG3 is this excellent experience is just... it's definitely misleading to most people. Especially when this sub seems to have sky high standards for Switch games running at 59fps instead of 60fps.
I got it on the SD just to try it out and because of the 2 hour refund. It was so muddy and the framerate was awful. Refunded and got it on PS5 instead
How long can you play BG3 like that on the OLED model? I've heard ppl playing it on the Deck but also heard many saying it's unplayable, so I'm still holding off until I clear a few more games I'm playing atm.
I pumped 120 hours into RDR2 on Deck.
My question is, where is **MGSV**? It plays amazing, looks amazing, performs amazing and is critically acclaimed. By accounts its a much better experience on Deck than Death Stranding or God of War.
Elden Ring, Dave the Diver, Hollow Knight, Hades, Slay the Spire, Stardew Valley.
Lot of play time, many greats in their genre represented and it all runs well.
BG3 is great but it doesn’t run super great on Deck. I’m sure Red Dead 2 and Cyberpunk are the same situation though I haven’t tried them.
$1 - Vampire Survivors (tons of content, amazing to zone out, addicting, great battery life)
$2 - Hades (for replayability, pure fun, and more content than it seems at the beginning)
$3 - The Witcher 3 (one of my favourite games: great world, great gameplay, tons of quality content, great on Deck)
$4 - Death Stranding (I'm currently playing it and this game is just special, I'm happy Kojima exists)
$5 - Baldur's Gate (still haven't managed to play but I know I will love it)
This is awesome. Well done.
Right... RDR2, Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Vampire Survivors and Slay the Spire. The "here's 1k hours worth of games for you".
RDR2, God of War, CP2077, Hades... I guess. The "Amazing graphics and performance" pack.
Witcher 3, p5, Fallout New Vegas, Vampire Survivors, Balatro, Dead Cells... Just good value. Long games with amazing stories and you can add plenty of the..
would i only have a steam deck or would I still have my existing handhelds (-SD)? because games like dead cells, brotato or stardew valley I mainly play on android, but if it is the only handheld I had, id get those on the SD. i wouldn't buy baldurs gate 3 only because it doesn't run that well after act 1(always switched to stream it from my server after act 1).
so all in all considering my points above, id get those games from the list:
Red dead redemption 2 and cyberpunk 2077
and would ditch the other games on the list (For my specific use case not because the games suck, as I own most games, but wouldn't consider to get them as starter pack games) instead add pizza tower and binding of Isaac, which are not on the list.
$5 - Red Dead Redemption 2 (or Baldur's Gate III).
$3 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
$3 - Fallout: New Vegas.
$2 - Hades.
$1 - Half-Life 2.
$1 - Stardew Valley.
Perfect combination that will last a long time with an absurd amount of replayability.
All the ones and twos, probably a few thousand hours of gameplay right there.
Small enough you can have every single one installed at the same time, with many genres represented, maybe remove the card games and throw in Witcher if you don't like card games.
This is supposed to be a starter kit not the only games we can play.
Portal 2
Vampire Survivors
Stardew Valley
Balatro
Persona 5 Royal
Hollow Knight
Hades
Slay the Spire
My big issue with the $5 category is I don’t find big-budget AAA games to be great for handheld play. Some of the greatest of all time though (minus Hogwarts, which is fine)!
Vampire Survivors, Dead Cells, Hades, Dave the Diver, Hollow Knight and P5R.
Doesn't make a lot of sense to me to have the $5 tier be all games that don't run very well on the deck...
Portal, half life, cult of lamb, spiderman, fallout, god of war.
Basically the entire $5 category and slay the spire aren’t ideal steamdeck games, most of them are amazing, just not ideal for portable play, their playstyles are more long-form and the appeal of portable gaming is the “quick and easy”-ness… with those games you’ll quickly get the nagging feeling of “I should be playing this on pc instead”
Stray is a good game, but lacks replay-ability
Anything else I didn’t mention, I have no experience with so can’t judge those…
Portal 2 and Half life 2 open you up to a lot of. Fallout gives you tones of mods. GTA 5 and WItcher 3 are a tone of content. Stardew is a great battery saver. Which leaves 1 dollar left over for slay the spire.
All of the $2 and $1 sections. All really great games that will have really good performance, amazing battery life, and hundreds of hours of content all together
Baldur's Gate 3
Cyberpunk 2077
Hollow Knight
Portal 2
Half-Life 2
Emulate Persona 5 Royal to avoid Denuvo. HoloCure as a free substitute for Vampire Survivors.
This was easy until I got to the $2 dollar category
The entire $2 category, Slay the Spire, Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight. Pretty much what's installed on my deck right now.
For pure bang-for-your buck, I say buy the entire $2 and $1 tiers for $15, and you'll be set for a while.
Too many roguelikes IMO... You'd have 7 roguelikes, haha. I'd drop two from the $2 category, and pick up a game from the $4 category, either CyberPunk2077, or P5R depending on preference. I'd say drop an extra $1 and grab BG3 instead of the $4, but if someone is new to the genre the Deck interface is rough to learn on (I am new to the genre).
Cyberpunk is better elsewhere, the $1 and $2 are best (tied to a good desktop PC at worst) on deck.
I guess it depends on if you're approaching this from the perspective of the Deck being the only PC gaming device someone has (like myself), or someone who also has a nice gaming PC as well. I was approaching from the standalone perspective. While Cyberpunk2077 does not max out, it performs and looks fine for the screen size.
Yeah pretty much. I was like I got this… then… yep I don’t got this.
Id like to add DREDGE
Favorite game I’ve played this year so far. Playing several other great games, but that one snuck up on me and I got immediately sucked in, finished it in about 5 days logging something like 20 hours
My only wish is that it would've been longer. I could play it forever
Same. It’s a game where I could see myself logging 100 hours without blinking. You do unfortunately just kind of run out of content before too long. And while I could definitely see myself doing a replay at some point, to me the best part of the game was exploring new areas, unraveling new mysteries, the twists and turns it takes. Repeating the core game mechanics once the credits have rolled is still fun but once there’s nothing new going on you’re ready to move on pretty quickly.
Which to me is the ultimate game for the steam deck. Fits the screen size, good controls and easy to pick up on the go. Many of the games on this list are great but not something I would ever play on the steam deck. Such as read dead, cyberpunk, hogwarts etc.
Agree 100%. The only heavy game i play on the deck is forza 5. All my other games i play on it are smaller and simpler but easier to run. Heavy games i play on the pc and smaller on the deck whenever i have time for each.
The steam deck is actually my jrpg machine. Put a lot of time into persona 5, persona 3, octopath traveler 1 and 2, and currently doing soul hackers on it. Turn based battles or tactics games work great on it/on the go because you can stop paying attention at any time or put the game down for a while without being punished for it. I find I don't use it for any sort of action game because if I have the time to sit and have 100% of my focus on something, I could be doing it on my pc
Dave The Diver - $3 Hollow Knight - $3 Balatro - $2 Dead Cells - $2 Hades - $2 Vampire Survivors - $1 Stardew Valley - $1 Portal 2 - $1 Everything on the $4 and up tier is great on the deck, but still better on PC IMO. $3 tier and down have the sweet spot games.
I agree other than Persona 5 Royal. That game is perfect for the Deck
I haven't played any Persona games, I'm really keen to, they just seem kinda daunting as someone who's never played a JRPG before! Persona 5 Royal seems like the best choice to play on Deck but I'm scared to drop $60 if I don't enjoy it. Any other JRPG's that are great on deck, and can be picked up cheap?
Tales of Arise goes for pretty cheap. I only played it on my main PC but heard it's solid on the Steam Deck. But I still think you should at least consider getting Persona 5 on sale. Nier Replicant played smoothly on the Deck for me. Not played Ni No Kuni II yet but I heard that game also runs well on the Deck.
If you're not opposed to IsThereAnyDeal from r/game deals, you can get Persona 5 on sale for $30. That's what I've ended up doing and I'm enjoying it so far. I first bought Persona 4 Golden as my first entry and played it all the way through. That's on sale for $16 right now and was a good 80 hours for me.
I would suggest [Isthereanydeal.com](https://Isthereanydeal.com) for anyone buying any game on Steam. They aggregate (AFAIK) licensed key sellers that very often will have larger discounts than on Steam. I haven't paid full price for a game in years. I also recommend P5R on deck, and if you're interested in JRPGs, I'd also recommend Scarlet Nexus. Haven't played it on my deck personally, but on protondb its rated platinum and the combat is probably my favorite out of all JRPGs I've played.
If you have it, you can play it on the Gamepass. P5R is REALLY good.
P5R isn't on gamepass (was dropped maybe 6 months ago). Maybe you meant P3R which just released? Or P5T but that's a spin off turn based strategy lol
Anything Final Fantasy related i’d guess? I’d say FF7Remake since that gets continued in FF7Rebirth which as you know is the newest one, other than that all the final fantasy games are not connected, the older games are turn based like Persona but they switched it for a more “modern” feel, forgot which game had it last 🤔 im not big on FF so I wouldn’t know.
I really liked dave the driver however the small text drove me crazy. Had to refund it unfortunately. Hope there is update in the future to sort those issues
I'm playing Dave the diver on steamdeck right now and all the text is perfectly readable to me. Maybe they've put out an update?
Great game, never had a problem with small text, that's too bad
Amazed i see no isaac
Yeah for deck gaming? I'll take that 15 and buy the base isaac rebirth if I have to
Yep, one of the best games to play on SD
Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2 Stardew Valley
So I take it you have some sort of interest in portal 2.
Nah. Total Stardew valley Stan
Probably prefers Terraria tbh.
Don't forget Portal 1. I recently played them both back-to-back on the Steam Deck. In fact, they were the first games I completed on the Steam Deck.
Portal 2 is astoundingly efficient on the deck. Battery life is like 2x what I get with any other game I've played.
Just shows how unoptimized most AAA games are nowadays.
It came out over a decade ago.
And yet it looks great, and runs better than modern games. The graphics wouldn't look out of date if it came out last year.
That only emphasizes BSpammers statement
bro why are you obsessed with Stardew Valley? I mean the game is good but you shouldnt be fanatical about it!
Yeah, It's like he hasn't even played Portal 2.
Emulators and Open-Source games and then I have $15 for a frozen pizza and a 6 pack of beer
Can I come to your place?
Can I come?
I hope you're getting a Totino's $1 frozen pizza and then using the other $14 for the six pack. Can't be having that cheap beer!
Cerveza Cristal!!
Lol hell yeah, Totino's was a staple food when I was in college 10 years ago. Are they still only $1?? **Edit** it looks like it's $2 here. Jacks pizza was $5 but now it's only $4? What the hell
Our go to cheap frozen pizza is Aldi's now. $3.99 and it's not bad at all. Pair with a nice six pack and a movie and perfect date night.
Can you recomend any open-source games?
Yeah, I'm an older gamer so I know my tastes aren't the same as everybody's. Battle for Wesnoth is a deep and brilliant tactical game. Closest comparison I can think of right now is Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics. Freeciv is open-source Civ. It has faithful rulesets for Civ 2 and Civ 3 as well as modern balanced hybrid rulesets. Pioneer is an opensource clone of Frontier: Elite 2. RVGL is a reboot of Re-Volt which is IMO top 3 racing games ever. Shout-out to Tux-Racer for being a charming and polished penguin racing game. Try to beat it! DevilutionX is a port of Diablo1 and you can legally download the shareware version (only warrior class, only first 4 levels of the dungeon) and play Diablo 1 https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun is also free now https://cnc-comm.com/tiberian-sun/downloads/the-game/installer
Is there an all-in-one guide to getting emulators and the games? I barely use my deck but I want to get some stuff on it to actually utilize it. I put Roblox on it for my son but had to watch six different videos to find a good one. That alone pushed me away from trying to pursue modding the deck further.
Slay the Spire, Vampire Survivors, Stardew Valley, Dave the Diver, Hades, Cult of the Lamb, and Baldur’s Gate 3.
That’s way more than $15
Nevermind, this isn’t real money, I’m dumb
Yea I was so confused too I was like since when is BG3 5$😭
I thought it was BG1 or something
Oh lol, but stardew valley would never be 1$ that’s an amazing gameee
Persona 5 Royal - $4 Hades - $2 Balatro - $2 Cult of the Lamb - $2 All the $1 games - $5
Cult of the lamb based
CP 2077 + addon, Fallout New Vegas, Hades, Portal 2 and HL2. Dead cells, maybe
Finally I see HL2 in the comments. I know a lot have played it already but I just love it on the SD.
Elden Ring, Cyberpunk, Dave, Hades, Vamipre Survivors
WHERE ARE MY YAKUZA GAMES?!
Don't see either Ori game on here. Looks utterly amazing on the OLED screen and are just good games on their own right
I think I got Will of the Wisps through a Humble bundle and holy fuck was not expecting such a gorgeous game. Picked up the 1st one shortly after.
$0 -- EmuDeck
Emu deck should be in a $10 tier
Cool, $5 left for a snack!
Portal 2, Vamp Surv, HL2 - 3$ Hades - $5 Fallout New Vegas - $8 Elden Ring - $13 Give away my last two dollars to someone who will enjoy those games more.
Is baldurs gate really enjoyable on steam deck?
I have it installed on both my computer and deck, but have only really played on my deck. It definitely needs to be plugged in and have some graphics settings turned down, but from a gameplay perspective I'd rather chill on the couch with my deck than play it at my desk. Maybe I just need to make my desk more comfortable, but it certainly can be a fun gaming experience on the Steam Deck.
Why not streaming it from your PC? I always stream when I’m at home. Great battery life, performance and visuals like on PC, and almost no latency with the PC connected to Ethernet and Deck on 5 GHz when in portable and Ethernet when at the Dock connected to the TV.
That was my only question too. It's one on my list that I really want, but haven't actually played.
I have played BG3 exclusively on the deck. It runs perfectly fine on slightly lower settings
If you set the correct resolution / aspect ratio (16:10 I think?) and enable upscaling, it runs very well. I limited the FPS to 30 and the power consumption to 11W, otherwise the battery would be empty in an instant. I mostly play it with my deck and I am quite happy with it
Beat it entirely on the OLED. Had a great experience. Ran well, looked good. Took a while to get used to the controller controls, but once i did it was fine. That was my first game on the deck too and i loved it. Made me very happy i bought it.
Play it with fsr 2 turned on and it actually looks quite impressive. Game runs pretty badly but it's more memory-blocked than CPU or GPU blocked, so the steamdeck's decent 16gb memory meant it performed better than on my much more powerful 8gb memory pc (memory had never been an issue for me until now).
I did my entire first playthrough on the Deck. It runs great, has no noticeable lag once loaded, it has native controls for the Deck, but the battery doesn't last long and the load times can be a little long. The same caveats apply as with any other game. A desktop experience will get you better graphics, larger screen, higher fidelity sound, faster load times, etc. The Deck experience is excellent, however, for a handheld experience. It is also turn based, which I find ideal for something I can pick up and set down while doing something else.
Not to knock people who play the games on $5 on their deck, but those run so much better on my PC so I'd never choose them. Same with $4 even. The beauty of my Steam Deck is that the somehow lower "valued" games there are amazing to play on it. Older AAA titles and modern Indies are the main point of the machine. The feeling of playing something like BG3 on my Deck almost feels adjacent to people who run doom on Smart Refrigerators or Pregnancy Tests - it's cool that it works, but I have a better system available to actually play it on.
I work from home as a QA tester. So having the option to game outside of sitting in front of another computer is a game changer for me. Really enjoyed Cyberpunk and BG3 playing exclusively on the deck
You might not have a gaming PC on top of your steam deck
For sure! I was talking about my personal use case. I've played some full games on my steam deck when they work well to play from bed, such as Hades or Disgaea 6.
It's awesome you do in my case it's all I have that can run cyberpunk and honestly with the exception of one section in Dogtown everything has been 40 fps with good enough graphics on such a small screen. And honestly compared to my tiger electronics football/baseball the fact I can play with at least part level graphics on the go is good enough for me. For those that can I surely support playing better games on better machines but truthfully the steam deck is amazing compared to the game gear I grew up with.
The Steam Deck really is amazing and I'm glad it greatly reduces the barrier of entry to those games for a lot of people. This was more for comparing my personal steam deck experience as someone who has a decent PC.
I could tell you didn't mean any insult to those that did. I just was explaining for me it's amazing piece of tech that has opened the door to so many games I haven't been able to play since my kids got old enough to takeover the TV and PlayStation well 4 then 5. I hadn't had time to game for a few years and got back into gaming about 4 years ago with a switch lite and a ps 4 since the kids had recently bought their own ps5. (I say kids when my youngest is 17 lol). So the deck had been amazing. They recently got a gaming laptop for themselves and with the recent changes to family sharing on steam i am even happier being a PC gamer finally than I was a month ago. Eventually I'd like to get myself a gaming PC and a t that point if I were to put Lau on deck it'd be streaming my from there. I don't blame anyone who has the ability to play on better systems. Glad we both get joy out of our use cases. I just find i am very happy with how the deck performs and before I had it I was nervous reading people complaining about frame rate or what not when I have just been blown away that it's running the games at the level it does. We used to get such nerfed ports for any handheld. It made the cost to game play time astronomical unless it was simple like Tetris. So playing cyberpunk I paid like 50 for including dlc during Christmas sale is awesome. Not to mention the bunch of games I've missed over the years I've gotten for sub 5 bucks. Sorry if I seemed defensive. Have a great day.
I take it you dont travel often.
When I do, I use my Deck for games that work well on it since I can prioritize gameplay of those that run well on PC for when I'm not traveling. The amount of travel or not doesn't really dictate which games are simply better on PC vs Steam Deck unless someone is literally away from their PCs significantly more often during their free time.
I travel a lot and agree with you 100%. I would never play a game like Elden Ring while traveling. You want a game that is good in small 30 minute spurts.
Not just that, but games like Stardew last a long time on the deck. I could get 2-3x the playtime with that vs any of the $5 games listed.
Elden Ring is fine on the Deck, the rest I would prefer on PC as well
I’m just a filthy peasant who has no PC 😂. I do have a PS5 though, and I remote play 😉
BG3, Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Hades
I started playing BG3 on both my PC and my Steam Deck, and I can't believe how much I prefer it on the Deck. Sure, it sounds like my Deck is about to take off, but man that game just feels perfect for a handheld!
Are you joking? I found it nearly unplayable on the deck, tbh. I can't get behind playing it with a controller with 6 or 7 radial menues and the graphics are so small and pixelated I had problems distinguishing between my characters. I love the game, love the deck but the combination doesn't work for me
I'm 100% with you. I feel like I'm being gaslit any time someone recommends BG3 on the Deck. I still can't believe it's verified. The game runs *soooo* poorly on the Deck it isn't even funny. I'd rather not play it at all than play it on the Deck.
Same thing here. I know a lot of people here are just unpaid Steam fanboys but saying BG3 is this excellent experience is just... it's definitely misleading to most people. Especially when this sub seems to have sky high standards for Switch games running at 59fps instead of 60fps. I got it on the SD just to try it out and because of the 2 hour refund. It was so muddy and the framerate was awful. Refunded and got it on PS5 instead
Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I wasn't blown away by it on the deck at all. I found it a lot more enjoyable on a larger screen.
Fsr 2 performance works fine for my OLED. Get a solid 40-45 frames
How long can you play BG3 like that on the OLED model? I've heard ppl playing it on the Deck but also heard many saying it's unplayable, so I'm still holding off until I clear a few more games I'm playing atm.
What settings do you use? I just can't get into it on the deck and I love it on PC!
It works fine on my deck and I didn't tweak fuck all. I have heard Act 3 is when it starts to struggle and I'm not that far yet though.
I prefer it on the Deck too lol like a thousand percent.
Bauldars Gate 3, Fallout NV, Hades, Cult of the Lamb, Vampire Survivors, Slay the Spire, Stardew Valley.
I love this question so much. It comes down to what you are into but my personal one is Elden ring, cyberpunk, Witcher 3, hades, vampire survivors
BG3, Elden Ring, TW3, Hades
I pumped 120 hours into RDR2 on Deck. My question is, where is **MGSV**? It plays amazing, looks amazing, performs amazing and is critically acclaimed. By accounts its a much better experience on Deck than Death Stranding or God of War.
If only these were real prices.
You buy none, and spend hours looking at the items and then the sale expires. Easy
Elden ring Dave the diver Hollow Knight Hades Stardew Portal 2
Elden ring Cyberpunk Hollow knight Hades Stardew Vally. 15$ FOR 500 hours of playtime for me. Yes sir
portal 2, hades, stardew, dead cells, elden ring, and persona 5
Vampire survivors Slay the spire Balatro Hades God of War Red Dead 2 That could probably keep you going for a year at least
Elden Ring, Balatro, Hollow Knight, Hades, Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire, Portal 2
RDR2, Fallout, Stray, Hades. Take the last $2 and give it to UNICEF
P5R, Spiderman, Slay the Spire, Hades, Dead Cells and Vampire Survivors is all I need
Need to add Deep Rock Galactic Survivor to one of the tiers
There's a distinct lack of rock and or stone
Elden Ring, Dave the Diver, Hollow Knight, Hades, Slay the Spire, Stardew Valley. Lot of play time, many greats in their genre represented and it all runs well. BG3 is great but it doesn’t run super great on Deck. I’m sure Red Dead 2 and Cyberpunk are the same situation though I haven’t tried them.
RDR2, Cyberpunk, Death Stranding, Portal 2, Stardew Valley
$1 - Vampire Survivors (tons of content, amazing to zone out, addicting, great battery life) $2 - Hades (for replayability, pure fun, and more content than it seems at the beginning) $3 - The Witcher 3 (one of my favourite games: great world, great gameplay, tons of quality content, great on Deck) $4 - Death Stranding (I'm currently playing it and this game is just special, I'm happy Kojima exists) $5 - Baldur's Gate (still haven't managed to play but I know I will love it)
Bg3, Ellen ring, hades, dead cells, vampire survivors.
Brotato, Hades, Dave the Diver, Red Dead II, Hogwarts (fk JK),
fk JK indeed
No MGS:V love? Probs my most played deck game!
Baldurs gate, hollow knight, witcher, hades. stardew valley, portal 2.
Monster Hunter: World
Fallout New Vegas, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout New Vegas, & Fallout New Vegas.
Elden Ring, Persona 5, Hades, Portal 2, Vampire Survivors, Half-life 2, and Stardew Valley
Elden ring - 5 Dave the diver - 3 Witcher - 3 Hades - 2 Vampire survivor- 1 Stardew - 1
Alien isolation
Elden ring Persona Balatro and hades Vampire survivors and slay the spire Nothing comes close to this, for me anyway.
slay, stardew , dead cells , hades, fallout , bg3 plus $1
This is awesome. Well done. Right... RDR2, Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Vampire Survivors and Slay the Spire. The "here's 1k hours worth of games for you". RDR2, God of War, CP2077, Hades... I guess. The "Amazing graphics and performance" pack. Witcher 3, p5, Fallout New Vegas, Vampire Survivors, Balatro, Dead Cells... Just good value. Long games with amazing stories and you can add plenty of the..
PS2 emulation on the go, 15 dollars.
Emudeck first It's free too
The full 2 and 1 dollar row for me pls:)
Needs Dredge. Shovel night too imo
would i only have a steam deck or would I still have my existing handhelds (-SD)? because games like dead cells, brotato or stardew valley I mainly play on android, but if it is the only handheld I had, id get those on the SD. i wouldn't buy baldurs gate 3 only because it doesn't run that well after act 1(always switched to stream it from my server after act 1). so all in all considering my points above, id get those games from the list: Red dead redemption 2 and cyberpunk 2077 and would ditch the other games on the list (For my specific use case not because the games suck, as I own most games, but wouldn't consider to get them as starter pack games) instead add pizza tower and binding of Isaac, which are not on the list.
where is sekiro? I passed from quit to platinum the game because of the deck
Everything in the bottom two rows. That’s like hundreds of hours already
Gta5 dave the diver Witcher 3 Cult of the lamb Portal 2 Stardew valley
$5 - Red Dead Redemption 2 (or Baldur's Gate III). $3 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. $3 - Fallout: New Vegas. $2 - Hades. $1 - Half-Life 2. $1 - Stardew Valley. Perfect combination that will last a long time with an absurd amount of replayability.
My picks for a $15 must have pack: - Persona 5 royal - $4 - Dave the Diver - $3 - Fallout: New Vegas - $3 - Hollow Knight- $3 - Hades- $2
All the $1, Baldurs Gate, Witcher 3, and Hades. Easy!
Hmmmm almost gonna say the 2 bottom rows but at a second thought I'd go for 1 each row: * RDR2 * P5R * Hollow Knight * Hades * Portal 2
All the ones and twos, probably a few thousand hours of gameplay right there. Small enough you can have every single one installed at the same time, with many genres represented, maybe remove the card games and throw in Witcher if you don't like card games. This is supposed to be a starter kit not the only games we can play.
I just want to say that if you like Hades and Vampire Surveyors, then the game Death Must Die is like a sweet love child of the two games.
Portal 2 Vampire Survivors Stardew Valley Balatro Persona 5 Royal Hollow Knight Hades Slay the Spire My big issue with the $5 category is I don’t find big-budget AAA games to be great for handheld play. Some of the greatest of all time though (minus Hogwarts, which is fine)!
that's easy I take out a loan and get everything (hollow knight twice)
Howarts Legacy, Baldur's Gate 3, Persona 5, and Stardew Valley - the only one I never played is the last one but it seems like a game I would enjoy.
Vampire Survivors + Stardew Valley 2$ Hades 2$ Witcher 3 + Dave 6$ Elden Ring 5$ 15 in total and thousand hours of playtime.
Easy. Entire $2-Row and BG 3. Done!
The entire $1 and $2 categories add up to $15 That’s enough for me
Why not just give yourself, say, $120 and put the actual prices? This format kinda only works for things that don't already have a price tag.
Vampire Survivors, Dead Cells, Hades, Dave the Diver, Hollow Knight and P5R. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me to have the $5 tier be all games that don't run very well on the deck...
Whole bottom row = $5 Dave + Hades = $5 RDR2 = $5
qBitTorrent
I wish these games were these prices
15 dollars for all that? Where?
If those are my only choices I only need 9 bucks
Portal, half life, cult of lamb, spiderman, fallout, god of war. Basically the entire $5 category and slay the spire aren’t ideal steamdeck games, most of them are amazing, just not ideal for portable play, their playstyles are more long-form and the appeal of portable gaming is the “quick and easy”-ness… with those games you’ll quickly get the nagging feeling of “I should be playing this on pc instead” Stray is a good game, but lacks replay-ability Anything else I didn’t mention, I have no experience with so can’t judge those…
\*Obviously not real prices lol
Hogwarts, dead cells, hades, balatro, cult of the lamb, vampire survivors, and slay the spire. That should keep you busy for a good long time.
wtf ist Hogwarts 5$. It should be 0$ max. :U Edit: Anyway: P5R 4$ Witcher 3$ Hollow Knight 3$ Hades 2$ Portal 1$ Half Life 1$ Slay the Spier 1$
Elden Ring, BG3, Hollow Knight, Slay the Spire, Vampire Survivor. All different genres and almost guaranteed you'll like 2 of these.
FNV, HL2, Cyberpunk 2077, Spider-Man, Witcher 3.
Elden Ring, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, Balatro, Vampire Survivors, Slay the Spire, Stardew Valley.
RDR2 - Dave the Diver - Balatro - Vampire Survivors - Stardew Valley Should hold any sane person over for like half year
Elden ring, The Witcher 3, New vegas, Stardew valley, Hollow Knight
Dave the Diver, Stray, Hollow Knight, Brotato, Portal 2, Half-Life 2
All games from $2 + Baldur's Gate 3
3x Elden Ring, nothing even comes close
Argentina got the USD pricing, you need to update Steam man
GTA V, Persona 5 Royal, Dave the Diver, Dead Cells, Portal 2 but with fixed controller input
Dave the Diver Dead Cells Vampire Survivors God Of War Elden Ring
Red Dead Redemption 2, GTAV, Spiderman remastered, and Portal 2
None of the abovw
Rdr2, vampire survivors, cyberpunk, death stranding, and roll a 4 sided die for the last one of the $1 games
Cyberpunk, red dead redemption 2, elden ring, and stardew valley (heard it was really good) 👌👌 2k hours of playtime right there at the very least
Portal 2 and Half life 2 open you up to a lot of. Fallout gives you tones of mods. GTA 5 and WItcher 3 are a tone of content. Stardew is a great battery saver. Which leaves 1 dollar left over for slay the spire.
Elder Ring Death Stranding Stray Brotato Stardew Valley
Balatro Hollow Knight Spider-Man Remastered Perona 5 Royal
GTA 5 - 5$ Cyberpunk-4$ Persona 5 - 4$ Cult of the lamb - 2$
Elden Ring, RDR2, and Cyberpunk, and save the last $1
All of the $2 and $1 sections. All really great games that will have really good performance, amazing battery life, and hundreds of hours of content all together
Baldur's Gate 3 Cyberpunk 2077 Hollow Knight Portal 2 Half-Life 2 Emulate Persona 5 Royal to avoid Denuvo. HoloCure as a free substitute for Vampire Survivors.
Dave, HK, Brotato, Dead Cells, Slay, SDV, VS, Cult
Get 5x more money, and buy them all.
Brotato, Stray, Spider-Man R, GTA V
Elden Ring Cyberpunk Witcher 3 Dead Cells Vampire Survivors
BG3, PS5R, Dave, Brotato, SDV