Discourse? Look mate, I’m just here to test the Steam Deck. Dragon Age: The Veilguard runs like a tap on any halfway decent desktop hardware, so was naturally going to be worth trying on the weaker Deck. And sure enough, Bioware’s RPG (which is really more of an action game with the occasional verbal spar) settles comfortably into handheld life.
In fact, Valve have festooned its Steam page with a Verified medal, a seal of approval for any game that performs and controls well on the Steam Deck without any glaring weaknesses or impractical annoyances. It’s still worth playing around with the settings – more on those later – but I’ll back up that official assessment, having played for several hours without so much as an undersized tooltip.
]]>The Steam Deck’s competitors, whether they’re the old guard Ayaneo family, the luxe Asus ROG Ally X, or the shapeshifting Lenovo Legion Go, usually share the same attack line: they can play more of your games. The Deck’s compatibility issues aren’t nearly as issue-some as they were at launch, but between its Linux-based SteamOS and its relatively mild processing power, but it is true that beefier Windows handhelds will more likely cater to your entire cross-launcher library.
Unless, that is, you get something else to run them for you. Streaming games on the Steam Deck has emerged as a nifty workaround for the portable PC’s lingering compatibility woes, making even officially unsupported games playable. Usually with much better performance, too, as the actual rendering work is done remotely – what you see on the Deck’s screen is basically a video feed of that remote device’s display output, with your control input beamed the other way via a low-latency connection. And because you’re not using SteamOS or the internal hardware to actually run the game, it’s not bound by their limits.
]]>Enabling the performance overlay on your Steam Deck takes but a moment, yet can deliver oodles of information on how your games are running. That makes it useful whether you simply want to know how much battery life to expect, or if you’re going full tweak mode on the Steam Deck’s hardware settings and need to scarf down as much performance data as possible.
]]>Learning how to play Game Pass games on your Steam Deck will both demonstrate the handheld’s compatibility limits, and show you how flexible it can be in bending them. See, while it’s not actually possible to install PC Game Pass games onto your Steam Deck’s SSD, Xbox Cloud Gaming – a streaming service included with Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions – can be unlocked on the Deck, making the all-you-can-eat library available to play. Here, we’ll show you how.
]]>As someone who hasn’t been able to aim with thumbsticks since about 2008, the ability to calibrate, customise, and ultimately deploy gyro controls on the Steam Deck has me considering the internal gyroscope as one of the Deck’s hidden gems. Not every game will support motion input, but in those that do, it can be a more comfortable alternative to the sticks and trackpads; you are, after all, harnessing the precision of using both hands in tandem, rather than a single crooked thumb.
]]>Knowing how to format a microSD card on the Steam Deck is as essential as the card itself. While the Deck is compatible with any microSD card that meets at least the UHD-I specification – loads, in other words – it doesn’t format them automatically, leaving one final DIY step before your expanded storage card can actually serve as expanded storage. It’s easily done, though, as the shortness of this guide attests.
]]>Installing Zenless Zone Zero on a Steam Deck is pretty straightforward, especially compared to the nightmare that was getting fellow anime-styled RPG Wuthering Waves to behave on the handheld. Despite ZZZ’s lack of native Linux/SteamOS support, the Deck has more than enough compatibility-boosting tools available to make it launchable – and enough graphical power to run it smoothly on Medium settings.
In fact, there are a few different ways of installing Zenless Zone Zero on your Steam Deck. One of the more popular methods I’ve seen involves configuring the Heroic Games Launcher to run the Epic Games Launcher, which in turn can run the Zenless Zone Zero (Games?) launcher. However, I’ve discovered a much simpler and easier technique, based around Lutris; it’s this method that I’ll walk you through below.
]]>Anyone looking for how to record game clips on their Steam Deck will have, until recently, been starved for decent options. Decky Loader allows for a decent screen capture plugin, for instance, but even that’s on the overly basic side. Enter Steam’s own Game Recording feature – a flexible bundle of game-clippin' tools that’s now emerged from beta and is available to all Steam Deck users on the SteamOS Stable branch.
As far as handheld recording majiggers go, there’s currently little reason to use anything else, not least because Game Recording is built right into the Steam Deck’s operating system. As such, it’s highly configurable and, once you get to grips with the recording process, easy to use and share clips with. Its only problem is that it doesn’t explain itself all that well at first, but good news: you’re reading a guide. Here, I’ll walk you through how to capture footage using both of Game Recording’s two modes, as well as how to save and share those highlights with pals.
]]>Besides giving The First Descendant the ol’ benchy marks on desktop, I was curious to see how this gleaming looter shooter would run on the less flexing hardware of the Steam Deck. The answer: it didn’t, at first. Luckily, a semi-quick fix was enough to get me in, where I found a game that for all its ray tracing inclinations, is comfortable with life on the Deck. Reasonably. Most of the time.
]]>Update: Whelp, spoke too soon. Apparently some Steam Deck players are seeing an "Innapropriate activity detected" message upon launching Elden Ring, blocking them from playing online. I haven't had this myself, and some have reported the issue fixing itself after they installed the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, but hopefully there's a proper patch in the works.
Elden Ring on the Steam Deck has long enjoyed a smoothness that desktop play has lacked. Not so much in simple framerate terms – the handheld spends far more time around the 30fps mark than it does bumping into Elden Ring’s 60fps cap – but thanks to a Proton compatibility update back in 2022, it’s drastically less prone to the flow-breaking stutter that still plagues the RPG in 2024. That now goes for Shadow Of The Erdtree as well, judging from my portable time in the new expansion.
]]>Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut is now out and about on PC, sadly with the requirement of signing into a PlayStation Network (PSN) account in order to play the samurai action-adventure’s Legends co-op mode. The same requirement, you might recall, that Helldivers 2 players recently lobbied Sony into abandoning. No such luck here, and as previously warned, the need for said PSN sign-in to happen over Windows means that Ghost of Tsushima is essentially missing a chunk of itself on the Steam Deck.
]]>I’ve been sampling Hades 2’s early access build on the Steam Deck, and my only complaint – besides the smooching frog having eluded me for hours – is that it’s giving me very little to write about, performance analysis-wise. Honestly, it fits the dinky PC so well you’d have thought Supergiant had decided to make this roguelike sequel a Steam Deck game that just happened to run on desktops by accident.
Hades the first was much the same, taking to the Deck like Hercules to Augean shit, but Hades 2 barely even gives away that fact that it’s unfinished. It doesn’t crash, stutter, or hang, and there’s no point in talking about settings when it runs at a practically perfect 60fps on max quality. Make that 90fps on the Steam Deck OLED, too. It’s just a fabulous game for handhelds, even in its earliest of early access days.
]]>Here’s the thing: I’ll gladly show you how to install an SSD in a Steam Deck, but be warned that it’s by far the trickier of your two storage upgrade options. Whereas adding a microSD card is as easy as pushing it into the dedicated slot, swapping out the Deck’s internal drive involves fiddling with some seriously sensitive components. It’s not for the faint of heart nor the shaky of hand, and unlike the majority cool things you can do with Valve’s handheld PC – be it adding fun plugins with Decky Loader or unleashing its versatile Desktop Mode – swapping the SSD does require a fair few tools.
]]>I remain the least qualified person alive to appraise Manor Lords an actual strategy game – my village stewardship is proving inept, even by medieval posho standards – but I have delayed economic and social ruin long enough to know it runs well on the Steam Deck. Just as it’s smooth low-end performer on desktops, Manor Lords can easily keep its head above 30fps in handheld mode, and that’s usually more like 40-45fps with the right visual settings.
Still, there’s scope for it to become a much more Deck-friendly game, if not by its April 26th release date then hopefully at least during its early access phase. Faster performance would be nice, sure, but what this citybuilder-meets-RTS-battler really needs for optimal portability is a more refined set of controls.
]]>Even if connecting your Steam Deck to a TV takes the "portable" out of “portable PC,” big-screen play is yet another of the handheld’s many talents. As far as lounge-based gaming goes, it’s certainly preferable to hauling several kilos of desktop from your desk to your telly and hooking that up instead.
As for the particulars of marrying Deck and TV, Steam Remote Play veterans may immediately turn their thoughts to the Steam Link. This can indeed enable wireless beaming of your handheld-installed games onto the living room screen, but sadly, the Steam Link itself has been discontinued for years, and while it lived on as a smart TV app, this isn’t widely available either - especially after Samsung cut support for it in 2023. Nowadays, your best bet is to connect your Steam Deck to your TV using physical hardware, and this here guide will show you how.
]]>If you’re of the handheld PC persuasion and have thought "Psh, I don’t need one of the best Steam Deck docks", then I know what you mean – I’ve had a Deck since launch and didn’t bother with any kind of proper docking station for months afterwards. I'll tell you, though, this was a mistake. Even if they’re not essential for the Steam Deck’s intended portable exploits, in the same way that a good microSD card or carrying case is, docks make it drastically easier to poke around Desktop Mode – and by extension, to unlock all of the device’s coolest secrets.
]]>You could say that the best Steam Deck case is the one you get for free, and to be sure, I have no qualms with Valve’s bundled carrier. Especially not the one you get with the 1TB Steam Deck OLED, which adds a neat mini-case in the form of a removable liner. Still! As you’ll see here, you do have a choice of worthwhile upgrade options, ranging from conventional hard cases with extra accessory storage to clever protective sleeves that combine impact resistance with improved handheld grip. The best way to avoid Steam Deck damage is to not drop it in the first place, as Sun Tzu probably said.
]]>Not every March-released, fantastical action-RPG will fall to bits on the Steam Deck. Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition succeeds where Dragon’s Dogma 2 spluttered, quietly yet capably adapting to handheld hardware. Keeping performance up requires a fair bit of fine-tuning the graphics settings, and a girthsome install size might trouble the internal drives of smaller models, but otherwise, Forbidden West is just as portable-friendly as Horizon Zero Dawn. And that’s still one of the best Steam Deck games around.
]]>Dragon's Dogma 2 is, as a game per se, very good! It’s creative and intelligent and lets you fill other players’ worlds with recruitable humanoid versions of your pet cats. Still, a technical masterclass it is not. In my performance analysis, I touched on DD2 being particularly unplayable on the Steam Deck, suffering from sub-10fps framerates and a bunch of broken settings. Since that was based on pre-release code, I had quietly hoped that Capcom could pull something – anything – out of the bag to salvage handheld PC play in time for launch day, but now the time has come, I’ve checked again, and nope. This RPG adventure simply doesn’t work on the Steam Deck, and probably never will.
]]>Installing Decky Loader on your Steam Deck is one of the biggest free upgrades you can make to it. With a few clicks (or touchscreen taps), you can open up a library of feature-adding plugins that are as versatile as they are easy to use. Want better management of your Steam Deck screenshots, or a simple way of recording your screen, or more information about battery usage, or interface tweaks to SteamOS itself? All in one place, with one-tap downloads, and accessible from the Steam Deck’s existing quick access menu? Install Decky Loader.
]]>Once you know how to enable Desktop Mode on the Steam Deck, you basically get the keys to its handheld gaming kingdom. From playing Game Pass games on your Steam Deck to installing Lutris and other non-Steam launchers, many of the device’s best hidden functions are enabled through Desktop Mode – not to mention its entire usability as a proper desktop PC.
]]>Nightingale’s dapper cast of cross-dimensional pathfinders are right about one thing: realmwalking is dangerous business. Attempt to tele-portal between realities on the Steam Deck, for instance, and you may find yourself trapped in the Stygian void, naught but a frozen loading screen tip for company and suspended hopelessly for all eternity. Or until you hold down the power button.
This crashing tendency alone means that while Nightingale can technically run on the Steam Deck, even without resorting to rock-bottom graphics settings, the current early access build isn’t yet ready for regular handheld play. That’s nothing developers Inflexion Games won’t tell you themselves – they’re "not considering [the Deck] officially supported at launch," after all – but if you were thinking of giving this gaslamp fantasy survival sim a portable whirl, you might want to let that call to adventure go unanswered.
]]>Welcome to Steam Deck Academy, where we take the microfibre cloth of understanding and wipe away the smudgy touchscreen fingerprints of handheld gaming ignorance. Here, eager students – that’s you, I’m assuming – can feast their minds on all the Steam Deck guides, explainers, and investigations that we’ve produced, as well as further instructive pieces to come.
]]>To install Lutris on your Steam Deck is to swing open the doors that SteamOS, being a Linux-based device in the Windows-dominated world of PC games, normally keeps shut. See, for all the thousands upon thousands of Steam Deck-ready games on Steam itself, there are many more hiding within their publishers’ preferred launchers – launchers that SteamOS can’t install without help. Lutris is a convenient tool that not only forces these apps to work on the Steam Deck, but handles their individual installations, all while acting as a handy all-in-one launcher of launchers.
It supports all the biggest Steam alternatives like GOG, Battle.net, the Epic Games Launcher, the EA App, and Ubisoft Connect, and can gather and install all the Linux compatibility gubbins they need with minimal input from you. It’s a fabulous addition for Deck owners whose game collection is spread across multiple services, and once you have a launcher up and running, it operates with the same functions and UI that you’re already familiar with from desktop use.
]]>Helldivers 2 is turning out to be an absolute laugh riot of a co-op shooter; it may even have the potential to rival Deep Rock Galactic on good vibes and teammate deaths as accidental comedy masterstrokes. Even ongoing server connectivity issues haven’t done much to spoil the sense of fun, which incidentally, can also be shared on the Steam Deck.
Indeed, following a quick Proton update on Valve’s part, its previously SteamOS-incompatible anti-cheat will no longer put the kibosh on you dropping into Helldivers 2 via your Deck. I’ve been testing on both an original 512GB model and the newer Steam Deck OLED, and as long as you don’t mind dropping the quality settings, it can usually run tidily above 30fps.
]]>As a monster-collecting, knowingly cynical, base-building survival game, Palworld is officially Not My Thing in at least three different ways. But I do like the Steam Deck, as well as feeling a sense of being vaguely useful. Thus, instead of moaning about holding down a button for 20 seconds to plant some berry seeds, I’ve tested how Palworld adapts to life on Valve’s handheld – and worked out which are the best settings to use with the Deck’s modest hardware.
]]>For such a ma-bloody-hoosive RPG, it turns out Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth can fit rather snugly in the diminutive Steam Deck. Developers RGG Studio revealed, a full two weeks before launch, that Valve had awarded it coveted Verified status – a mark of honour for games that run, control, and generally operate well on the handheld.
What that golden sticker doesn’t explain is that to keep above a suitable 30fps, Infinite Wealth does demand that you swing the stolen bicycle of quality reductions directly into the soft skull of its graphical settings. It’s perfectly doable, mind, so if LADding around Hawaii sounds like as much fun to you as Ed’s review makes it seem, read on to find out how Infinite Wealth gets on with the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED.
]]>One SteamOS patch and a reinstall later, and I’ve overcome my initial launching woes to properly play Starfield on the Steam Deck. Though perhaps it was better off breaking in the atmosphere, and while I’m enjoying Starfield’s spacey adventures in a general sense, its punishing technical requirements are making the Deck’s usually-plucky hardware look like a pile of Old Earth scrap.
]]>Sad news vis-a-vis playing Starfield on the Steam Deck: it runs like a slug, even on the lowest possible settings. And if you were planning to get it through PC Game Pass, that's another issue, as Game Pass games are locked down behind the fully Deck-incompatible Universal Windows Platform system. If the wonder of space depends on the it being a borderless infinity realm of endless possibilities, nobody told Microsoft.
There is a way, however, to sidestep both problems. Xbox Cloud Gaming will let you play Starfield on the Steam Deck at a steady (enough) 30fps, by streaming the game from Microsoft's cloud network direct to your screen - no Proton GE or Lutris launcher required. It still takes some setting up, but luckily, you’ve already clicked onto a step-by-step guide on how to do it.
]]>Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon launches tomorrow with the distinction of being a FromSoftware game that isn’t missing a bunch of PC tech basics, with ultrawide and 120fps support welded on as standard. As I’ve been finding out, it’s also a fine fit for the Steam Deck: performance issues are few, controls translate comfortably, and it won’t hog too much space on a microSD card. Handheld life is good for Fires of Rubicon, even if it likes to keep yours brutish and short.
]]>Update, and a rather important one at that: The crashing issues I’ve had with Baldur’s Gate 3 on the Steam Deck have been, as far as I can tell, fully fixed. No more collapsing back to the Steam library on startup, and no forcing the use of Proton Experimental – it should launch and work straight away. Valve have even upgraded Baldur’s Gate 3 from Playable to Verified for Steam Deck play, reflecting its newfound handheld-readiness.
This means you can safely ignore the first part of this article, where I whinge about software instability as if it’s the the most heinous atrocity humankind has ever inflicted on itself. All the stuff on general performance, settings, and battery life still applies.
]]>You’ve got the Steam Deck – now it’s time for some Steam Deck accessories. The best Steam Deck accessories, no less. This guide doesn’t cover microSD cards, partly because they’re too essential to be mere accessories, but otherwise there’s everything you need here to fully trick out your handheld: port-packed docking stations, carrying case upgrades, scratch-resistant screen protectors and grippy thumbstick covers.
Whether you went in early on the original Steam Deck or picked up the newer Steam Deck OLED model, accessories are a handy (and often quite cheap) means of both personalising your kit and making the handheld life just easier for you in general. Docking stations, for instance, make it completely painless to navigate Desktop Mode with a mouse and keyboard, opening up a route to adding non-Steam game launchers. And even a new case – seemingly unnecessary, considering all Steam Decks come with one – could cut down on bag bulk or, conversely, add room for earbuds and power banks.
]]>At launch, The Last of Us Part I almost looked like a lost cause for potential Steam Deck play. Even next to its wonky performance on desktops, it ran truly dreadfully on the Valve handheld, leading to the Steam custodians themselves slapping it with an Unsupported rating. Following yesterday’s v1.1.0 patch, however, it’s in much better technical shape, and has swapped that miserable grey Unsupported badge for a reassuringly green Verified one.
]]>Installing Battle.net on a Steam Deck is no longer the only path towards handheld Diablo IV, now that it has a Valve-Verified Steam version. Nonetheless, if you’re sticking to the original release, it’s still perfectly possible to get Blizzard’s demonic RPG – plus the likes of World of Warcraft and Hearthstone – playable on your Deck, despite the launcher’s lack of native support. You even have a couple of options on how to get there, so this guide will cover both how to install Battle.net directly to a Steam Deck’s SSD and an alternative method that uses the Lutris all-in-one launcher.
]]>Beleaguered vampire huntin' FPS Redfall has at least one seal of approval, even if our reviewer Ed was left cold. Shortly before release, Valve bestowed it with Verified status for the Steam Deck, a coveted green tick that represents more or less complete compatibility and suitability for the portable PC.
I wouldn’t normally curl an eyebrow at this sort of thing – having more great Steam Deck games is good for PC gaming – but given how all-over-the-shop Redfall’s performance is on desktop PCs, could it really settle in on the less powerful Deck? A few ambulatory vamp slaying jaunts later, I can conclude that it... maaaaaybe can. Sort of.
]]>The Star Wars Jedi: Survivor experience on PC is, at least here on release day, a generally pleasurable Far Far Away fantasy marred by some ugly performance issues. After a few hours' worth of attempts to get it running on the Steam Deck, I can now – with a face similar to that of Ewan McGregor cry-laughing over child murder – report that Jedi: Survivor is in even worse condition on the handheld. It’s unplayable.
]]>I’m too prejudiced against first-person melee games to enjoy Dead Island 2 as much our reviewer Rick Lane did, but even a mind as narrowed as mine can appreciate its slick performance on PC. I wanted to see how well that smoothness and stability would carry over to the Steam Deck, and although the long-delayed zombie mulcher needs some cuts to quality settings, finding the right balance will have Dead Island 2 running almost as comfortably as the very best Steam Deck games.
]]>Update: It's fixed! Well, fixed enough. The Last of Us Part I is now Steam Deck Verified, following a series of patches. I've re-tested it and a combination of Very Low settings and Quality-level FSR 2 upscaling can now hold a comfortable 30fps minimum.
The original, far less impressed article continues below.
]]>The Resident Evil 4 remake is a mostly cool runner on desktops, and good news if you’re recently picked up a certain handheld PC in the sales: its Steam Deck performance is alright too. Maybe not to the battery-sipping, framerate-abundant extent of the very best Steam Deck games, but with the right settings, nu-Resi 4 can keep its burlap sacked head well above 30fps even in its most visually demanding scenes.
]]>There’s a minor bombshell tucked into the latest Steam Deck OS preview update, which is mainly about fixing Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty issues. With this update installed, you can enable proper, full-fat ray tracing on the Deck for the first time, specifically in Doom Eternal. Neat!
]]>I spent the past weekend flicking between the Dead Space remake on my PC, and the Dead Space remake on my Steam Deck. It’s a belter of a refurb, and for me personally, has been like getting dessert after being forced to finish my Forspoken vegetables. Still, some lingering performance woes on the Deck mean I’m probably going to continue Isaac Clarke’s first and worst job on desktop alone.
To be fair, the remake is playable on Valve’s handheld. It’s not outright broken, despite having been so on launch day, with problems ranging from drastic FPS dips to outright hard crashes. Following some impressively fast work from Valve themselves, focusing on hotfixes for SteamOS’ Proton compatibility software, Dead Space’s Deck performance has become more or less manageable. But worthy of the best Steam Deck games? Nope, nein and non.
]]>Now that the Rockstar-embarrassing, staccato-titled Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition is out on Steam, this terrible trio of remasters has bailed out of Rockstar Store exclusivity and rolled into the speeding bumper of easy Steam Deck compatibility. I’ve spent this afternoon ambling around the redone GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas, in handheld form, to confirm what you probably already know: they’re all still a bit crap.
]]>The PC continues to collect PlayStation mascots like they’re Maccies Monopoly tickets. This time it’s adventuring iron-quiffed quipper Nathan Drake, courtesy of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which is out on Steam on November 19th. And where there’s a Steam game, there’s usually a Steam Deck game, so Liam and I have both busted out the handhelds to see how well this remastered bundle of Uncharted: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy takes to more portable hardware. That includes the best settings to use if you want to play it on your own Steam Deck.
You can watch Liam’s video below to see how he got on, along with footage of how Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection runs in situ. After swapping notes we’ve settled on a settings guide that will get you consistently decent performance across both the individual games; if you’d prefer it in text form, read on.
]]>A while back, I was wondering where all the Steam Deck accessories were. Valve themselves have the case covered, including a decent hard case with even the cheapest 64GB models, and it’s not difficult to pick up one of the best microSD cards for the Steam Deck. Otherwise, and especially with delays to Valve’s official dock, there’s not much out there from the usual PC hardware suppliers.
I therefore turned to the makers and sellers of Etsy, where a kind of indie Steam Deck accessory market has emerged. Soon, I’d bought (with my own money, you’re welcome ReedPop) a selection of unique, handcrafted, sometimes questionable gadgets and appendages, and promptly packed them onto a train for independent appraisal by a newly minted Steam Deck owner. Specifically, RPS vid bud Liam.
]]>When Sony revealed that Spider-Man Remastered was headed to PC earlier this year, I became fixated with the idea that the game would potentially work on the Steam Deck. I mean, it worked on a base PS4, right? By my understanding the Steam Deck is basically just a PS4 with a screen slapped on it, so surely portable Spider-Manning wasn't an unrealistic thing to expect?
After spending a few days testing out the game on the Deck I'm thrilled to confirm that Spider-Man Remastered plays great on Valve's handheld with only a few very minor caveats. Hooray! I can finally punch a Vulture in my back garden without getting shouted at by local bird protection services. What a time to be alive.
]]>V Rising, the vampiric survival base builder and surprise hit of 2022 so far, has just got freshly minted Steam Deck Playable status - courtesy of an update to the Deck’s Proton compatibility software. As per Valve’s changelog for the Proton 7.0-3 update, V Rising is among several games (including Age of Chivalry and the original Vermintide) to gain sufficient compatibility with the Steam Deck for the second-highest rating of their review programme, just short of Verified.
Technically, V Rising has been lowercase P-playable on the Steam Deck since late May, when these software improvements appeared on the ‘Bleeding Edge’ branch of Proton Experimental. Now, though, the update has graduated to the main, stable Proton branch, so you don’t have to risk the potential wonkiness of a work-in-progress. I’ve given V Rising a try on the Steam Deck and it does indeed work, though it’s quick to show why it only got Playable status and not Verified.
]]>It’s coming up to three years since I thought "Huh, we should probably have a list of the best Steam Deck games", and I’ve been thinking about how its purpose has quietly changed. At first it was a guide for freshly minted Deck owners to get some purchase on its thousands-strong launch catalogue of compatible games; these days, though, there probably aren’t that many 'new' owners around, unless they were holding out for a white version. I’ve also realised that my updates have almost always been prompted by newer releases, giving the whole thing something of a recency bias.
Not to say that’s undermining it, largely because it’s only ever been, like, my opinion, maaaaan. But now and in the future, it probably will continue to act as a filter for recent (and semi-recent) games that happen to be particularly well-suited to being played on a lil’ handheld – rather than presenting itself as an attempt to pick just 30 top games from a decades-old mega-library. We’re all cool with that? Cool.
]]>Not that the added security isn’t appreciated, but Valve never actually explained how to set the Steam Deck lock screen in their Lock Screen Update patch notes. Good thing, then, that adding PIN protection to your handheld PC is quick and easy, as this step-by-step guide will show.
]]>Provided the Steam Deck isn’t your one and only games PC, you can make it an even more flexible handheld by using Steam Remote Play. Once you learn how to set it up – with the aid of this guide, I’d hope – you can have Remote Play stream any game from your Steam library straight to your Steam Deck. Yes, you’ll need a fast internet connection for the highest picture quality and lowest amount of input lag, but Remote Play can both sidestep Steam Deck compatibility issues and run your games with potentially much higher performance than what the Deck’s own hardware can manage.
]]>It gets easier every day to find out which games will simply run on a Steam Deck; the list of Steam Verified-rated games is regularly extending, and SteamDB are keeping track of Playable and Unsupported games as well. Still, while these may be old favourites that you’ve already sunk hours into on a desktop, you might still be wondering how these games play when transplanted to the smaller screen and gamepad-ish controls of a handheld.
Liam was wondering it, anyway. Thus, he picked ten difference game genres from the most-played on Steam, asked me to play at least one game that would broadly represent each, and report back on which are the most (and least) suited to life on the Steam Deck.
]]>Proton, the compatibility software Valve uses to help Windows games work on the Linux-based Steam Deck, is quite the achievement. There are thousands of games originally built without Linux/Steam Deck functionality in mind, but can work more or less flawlessly after passing through the Proton layer. The bad news is that, as some Deck owners are now discovering, not every game makes the jump without technical problems. The good news is that knowing how to install Proton GE on the Steam Deck can, potentially, fix them.
]]>Whether you early-adopted in 2022 or have only just picked up the new limited edition white model, every flavour of Steam Deck is improved by one of the best microSD cards. PC games ain’t getting any smaller, and by fattening up your total storage space, you’re helping the handheld fulfil its potential as a go-anywhere carrier of your Steam library. Maybe even a few non-Steam games, to boot.
]]>The Steam Deck is all about transplanting the pleasures of PC gaming to a handheld. But, if you’re exclusively accustomed to mouse and keyboard controls, even simple actions like taking a screenshot can require learning a new language of button combinations. Luckily, in this specific case, snapping a screenshot on the Steam Deck is as easy as a couple of presses – or to be more specific, a hold and a press.
]]>The Steam Deck’s battery life depends largely on what games you’re playing on it, and if you own one of the original models instead of the newer, longer-lasting Steam Deck OLED, you’d be forgiven for looking at the latter with a covetous eye. Some games, after all, can drain a 100% charge on an original Deck battery in less than a couple of hours.
Fortunately, there are more than a few tricks you can employ to extend your Steam Deck’s battery life. Some have been nestled in its settings menus since launch, others have been added as part of SteamOS updates, but pretty much all of them are worth trying if you’re unhappy with how quickly your handheld PC is conking out. This guide will explain how and, to sate the curiosity of prospective Steam Deck buyers, list the actual battery test results I’ve recorded with various games.
]]>Knowing how to install the Epic Games Launcher on your Steam Deck will let you sneakily bypass the handheld’s innate lack of... well, ability to play any games that aren’t out on Steam. You have a choice of installation methods, too, including the quick and easy Lutris launcher manager or a more complex (but more direct and flexible) manual installation. In this guide, we’ll show you how to do both.
]]>Half the point of the Steam Deck is that it’s portable, but the other half is that it’s a PC. With the right tools, then, you can plug into a monitor, add a mouse and keyboard, and get playing as if it were a (somewhat) conventional gaming rig. But how well does the Steam Deck work as a desktop PC, really? Valve’s use of the Linux-based SteamOS alone makes it less of a 1:1 equivalent to a Windows system, and its AMD APU was designed to handle the onboard display’s 1280x800 resolution – not 1080p and above.
]]>Last Friday I asked you, our loyal readers, if you had any burning questions about the Steam Deck. The aim was to answer as many as possible in time for the system’s official launch, which is today! After scouring through your questions and posing them to hardware editor James - who's been putting the system through its paces for a week or so now - we've created a mammoth 19 minute long video that's bursting at the seams with new information about Valve's first handheld PC.
]]>
