Looking for those games that you may have heard about but never tried until you got a Deck. Or old games on systems you never had that you’re trying for the first time. Or new AAA games that just released in the last year or two that you picked up for the first time specifically to play on Steam Deck and have kept you glued to the device.
I’m trying to reinvigorate my old, nostalgic love of gaming and hoping to find the perfect Steam Deck + addicting game combo.
Factorio. Godanmed Factorio ruining my life.
Did they release the controller setup?
Yep. Admittedly I couldn’t imagine an advanced player using the basic Xbox controller setup although I hear from the Switch players that it’s adequate. I could only play with the Steam Controller. It’s already verging on hard work playing it on a customizable multi button trackpad enabled controller that having limited controls would just break me.
This game is already addicting enough for me on PC, can’t imagine the addiction in a portable console.
And with the trackpad and back buttons and customizable controls it’s genuinely a treat to play. I don’t miss the keyboard/mouse. I even tracked down an old steam controller when I’m playing at home on the big screen.
Some friends and I once went to visit one of their families for spring break back in college. We made the mistake of starting a server.
The spring break ended. We left the room maybe twice a day to eat food, around 7pm and 4am. The factory grew. I think there was a family there, I can’t remember though.
The messenger and stardew valley are perfect steam deck games. I suspect hades is too but I put too many hours into it on PC before I got the deck.
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.
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.
Edit: Xbox one with usb(faster latency)
Interesting. Which controller?
I’m not OP, but I use an Xbox one controller.
The newer ones just use Bluetooth and these days my primary gaming computer is a laptop. Works fantastic, just plug and play really.
Thanks!
I’ve been hearing that those Xbox controllers work very seamlessly with PCs. I’ll probably buy one soon. I’ll use it with MAME and some Steam 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.
Thank you for that tip.
Edit: This one?
https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Xbox-WL-Controller-Gaming-Console/dp/B09BY1FTF7/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=xbox%2B1%2Bcontroller&th=1yep! i’ve got that Lunar Shift one, it looks pretty sick. Not like “i would pay extra money for this” sick, but you know.
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.
I really enjoyed Hero’s Hour, it’s eeriely similar to Mount and Blade but… pixel.
My gaming history is so diverse that I only recently realized that certain games have baises to certain styles of console now. Growing up I played a lot of NES and SNES games on an old hitachi laptop with the roms and a control scheme I didn’t know how to chance from PGUP PGDN and arrow controls. Never the less, my platforming 2D top down exploration feeling kicked in. Then the PS2 introduced me to 3D games and the different dynamics, but it was stolen so I got to explore the world of flash games until the Wii expanded the PS2’s dynamic games with depth of controllers. (Honestly it’s not talked enough about how Wii Sports is a form of AR.) Anyway, now as an adult the last nearly decade of gaming has been done mostly on PC, with just a few Nintendo games here and there between the 3DS, Wii U and Switch.
And through all of this, Nintendo has had very strong 3rd party titles - Retro City Rampage, Shantae, Shovel Knight, I mean the list could go on for forever. But what’s interesting is none of these kinds of games, even some dear classics like Phantom Brave/Disgaea, none of them fully appeal to me on PC. When I use the Steam Controller it helps immensely, but even then it can take some work to really feel “right”.
It wasn’t until I got the Steam Deck that I realized this connection between the smaller/portable nature of certain games to certain consoles. I mean, I was aware of it in the sense that I preferred certain games for certain consoles, but I never realized just how strongly “retro” games just need to be on a small screen with gamepad controls - and I loooved playing flash games on mouse and keyboard but the nostalgia of the screen format is just so overpoweringly nostalgic.
Anyway, all this to say - I have found a previously “nearly useless” part of my very large game library to be no longer “nearly useless”. There are now so many games that I have some interest in to at least try, because playing them on the Steam Deck just feels right.
Forager, Hero’s Hour, Monster Sanctuary, Blasphemous, and Yakuza (refound love for this one) are my 2022 replays top Steam Deck games. However during that time I also ripped all my Switch games to format shift them to the Steam Deck, so Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance 3 also got a lot of playtime.
Within the last year I’ve come across Smile for Me, Guts and Glory, and Narita Boy which I wouldn’t have normally played either.
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.
Of games that I’ve ONLY played on the SteamDeck, I think Dead Cells is probably my favourite.
For me it was Brotato.
I’ve been on a “bullet heaven” binge recently and have put so. many. hours. into Brotato in the last week or so.
I beat Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines for the first time on Deck. KBM controls bound to the system really did it for me and since it was a low spec game it ran flawlessly. And the game’s reputation holds up (well written and engaging but janky lol)
Ooh, I’ve never heard of this one. I’ll have to check it out!
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.
State of decay 2. I never really got into it until I got the deck.
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.
Persona 5 Royal
Maybe I’ll finally get around to playing the Persona series with my Steam Deck…
Well I didn’t first discover it on deck but I play a ton of Spelunky 2 on deck. Every time I boot it up intending to play something else, I see it there and go, “ooook just a couple rounds”
I rediscovered and fell in love all over again with Phantasy Star Online on the Steam Deck.
I’ve never played these games but have always heard about them…maybe now is my chance to check them out!
Wait, I can play pso2 on the deck?! I might have to download it!
I haven’t tried playing PSO2 on the Steam Deck, just the original.
Hades, Binding of Isaac
