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I love that there is no rhyme or reason to this list in terms of game genres, it is just a diverse list of damn good games.
It really proves that the deck platform is the opposite of a platform like VR where a narrow range of video game genre adaptions work well and most of the time translations to the medium just miss the point or feel clunkier.
People are just playing pc games on their deck, all kinds of pc games, there is no pattern to it other than the limitations of the deck hardware. I really don’t think there is any stronger statement about how titanic of a shift the steam deck is in the pc gaming world than this list because it decisively puts to rest any claim that the Steam Deck is a fad or that it only works well for a narrow range of pc games, or that linux will never become popular enough or that barely anybody is ever going to want to try to adapt mouse and keyboard focused games to steamdeck controls.
There is a quiet confidence to this list and it is extremely exciting.
I think a big part of that, for me at least, is Steam Input plus the trackpads being an actually usable alternative to using a mouse to move a cursor.
Those two features have made countless games that I never imagined I’d be playing on a controller, let alone a portable device, completely playable.
Steam Input alone is such a killer feature that I rarely see people talking about. The amount of customization you can do on a game-by-game basis is actually kind of hard to believe.
Steam Input alone is such a killer feature that I rarely see people talking about. The amount of customization you can do on a game-by-game basis is actually kind of hard to believe.
For me it is specifically the system for easily sharing and browsing community customizations that makes the difference. Some people love to DIY everything, building tools and setups from the ground up for the fun of it rather than going straight to off the shelf stuff.
Me? Well I want to be that person but I am not. Sure, I slowly build customized setups for games I have played for 100 hours+ but if every game I played required first doing a lengthy translation of pc controls to steamdeck controls I just wouldn’t do it. The fact that I can quickly try 3-4 community control schemes and impulsively throw out the ones that aren’t intuitive to me until I find one that I can hit the ground running with and tweak as problems arise makes all the difference in the universe to me.
I have played hundreds of shooters with a controller for wayyyy too many hours, I know how shooter controls should be mapped, if I try out a control scheme for a shooter on the deck and none of the buttons do what I expect them to do I don’t need to pull up the control editing scheme and start digging down into the settings to change stuff, I just pull up another community control scheme and try the buttons and repeat until I find one where the buttons I intuitively expect to do something generally do that thing.
the trackpads being an actually usable alternative to using a mouse to move a cursor.
I have to say, I loathe trackpads as input devices almost universally. Somehow, Valve’s hardware designers managed to implement trackpads that I actually like. It’s impressive.
Oh no! My money!!!
I can’t believe Balatro is so high on the list even though it came out less than a month ago. It’s very deserved though, it’s crazy addicting and it plays perfectly on the deck.
Only surprise for me is that Witcher 3 is so high up. In my experience it doesn’t actually run very well and needs the settings cranked down for an unstable 30 fps. Glad people are enjoying it, though.
There’s a steam deck graphics preset on the next gen version that works really well. I have the FPS locked at 45fps and it is really smooth. I am also playing the next gen version on my PS4 and it is really laggy compared to the steam deck.
People could be playing the pre-upgrade version of the game, which is still available as a beta option (afaik). It has much better performance.
I’ve seen some guides on settings for getting the upgraded version to run better as well, apparently stuff like grass detail makes a huge difference in how well the game runs.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Valve has launched the Steam Spring Sale 2024 and with it, you know the drill, there’s masses of discounts across all sorts of games.
There’s also a fresh list of the top 100 most played games on Steam Deck.
It really does surprise me on the types of games that are popular on Steam Deck, just continuing to show what a ridiculously versatile device it is.
I have hundreds of games still to complete, a massive pile of shame collecting dust and an unholy attachment to Helldivers 2 right now.
If you’re a bit stuck an easy recommendation is Bloons TD 6, it’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had with a tower defense game.
Baldur’s Gate 3 also only has a tiny discount at 10% off but gosh — best RPG I’ve played in years and it’s not likely to be cheaper any time soon.
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