12 mo. ago • 100%

Steam Deck Owners: What’s been your favorite game that you first discovered on Steam Deck and now you can’t seem to put down?

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.

71 comments

I installed 1,000 old game ROMs for NES, SNES, Sega Genesis/Master System, N64, and PS1. I’ve been reliving all of my childhood games since I got it. Road Rash on the PS1 was one I never played (and forgot existed) until my wife told me about it. What a blast.

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- Have you seen road redemption? It's a more modern rogue-lite spiritual successor.
  
  I can't promise it will scratch the same itch, and it's not cutting edge technically or anything, but I got some mileage from it.
  
  Edit: It's bundled on Fanatical for a couple bucks right now.
  
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  I have that. I was way too excited about it too. Unfortunately it's more like a mobile quality version of road rash.
  
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  Yeah! I binged that game when I found it. Completed the whole story and then started another playthrough.
  
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- Snes games rock. They hold up really well in gameplay and artwork, and finished ones I never played before on the Deck.
  
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  Rom hacks are so great, too. I always look for bug fix, QoL, and "skip the grind" mods (like 5× experience gain in JRPGs).
  
  Some completely change the style of gameplay, too, like the Turbo mod for Secret of Mana.
  
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- Same. Emu station has to be my most played app.
  
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- Just curious, did you get the Deck just for that? I think you can run all of those on like the Retroid Pocket, which is like 1/4 the price of the deck?
  
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  Oh, no haha. It was just nice to have them as categories in the Steam app alongside my 250+ PC games.
  
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I've had Slay the Spire in my Library for a while, but only got hooked on it when I tried it on Steam Deck.

When I got my Steam Deck at launch, the first game I was hooked on was Elden Ring, which came out around the same time. I first started it on my PC, but got frustrated by the huge lag spikes. Thankfully, those aren't a thing on Steam Deck!

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- Slay the Spire had been in my library a while, waiting for me to pick it up. I'm planning on getting an OLED, excited to try it out.
  
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  Once you get bored of the base game, Slay the Spire also has an extremely robust and high quality modding community. I got around 200 hours out of the base game and then an additional 250 on top of that out of modded classes and setting overhauls.
  
  StS: Downfall in particular is extremely high quality and was in fact so popular that it got its own Steam store page, like a free DLC would. Highly recommend.
  
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Factorio. Godanmed Factorio ruining my life.

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- The factory must grow
  
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- Did they release the controller setup?
  
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  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.
  
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- 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.
  
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- This game is already addicting enough for me on PC, can't imagine the addiction in a portable console.
  
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  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.
  
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My Steam Deck is pretty much a Vampire Survivors machine.

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- Probably shouldn't mention Brotato and Holocure then. Oh, oops 😉
  
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- This happened to me recently. I've slowed down now that I've got all the unlocks, just a couple secrets to go though…
  
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Subnautica.

I played it when it was beta, could not finish it then.

It runs pretty good on the Deck, and I alternatively play it on the Deck docked to a tv on the living room, and on my PC.

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- It's a good game.
  
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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.

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- 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.
  
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Fallout 4 for me was great on the deck. I've had it for years but only when I got the deck did I actually play it.

Also streaming Baldur's Gate 3 has been fantastic as well.

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- Oooh, I forgot you could stream from your PC to the deck!
  
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Vampire Survivors

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- Dopamine go brrr
  
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- What is there to do in the end game? I'm at the point now where I can get 1000+ golden eggs and I don't even know how much gold per run, if I want to, but the whole thing is just fairly easy and repetitive. No matter which character I get, I can use pretty much the same OP combo.
  
  I guess I could just go back to making the game hard again by disabling eggs, the OP weapons, and other things, but then what's the point since a lot of the fun is in unlocking things?
  
  Or am I just "done" the game, now, and it's time to move on to Soulstone Survivors or Brotato?
  
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Of games that I've ONLY played on the SteamDeck, I think Dead Cells is probably my favourite.

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For me it was Brotato.

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- I've been on a "bullet heaven" binge recently and have put so. many. hours. into Brotato in the last week or so.
  
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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.

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- That game is soooo good. The expansions are great too. I bought it on sale forever ago and never played. Booted it up on a whim randomly a few months ago and was totally consumed. Beat it so many times that I started researching speed run strats to see how fast I could beat it (which I never do). Can't seem to beat it before the first winter like some people can, but I've beaten it just after so I'm happy.
  
  Edit: also, fun fact, it has cross save support for the android version so you can continue your games on the go if you don't have your deck on you.
  
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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.

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Civ V destroyed a week for me. It was like crack. I don't know how I got loose of its clutches but I will never play that again. It's like a time portal to the future. Suddenly it's 2024 and all you did was boot into a game.

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State of decay 2. I never really got into it until I got the deck.

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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.

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  Interesting. Which controller?
  
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- 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.
  
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  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.
  
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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)

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- Ooh, I've never heard of this one. I'll have to check it out!
  
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Not a new discovery, but I rediscovered Torchlight 1 and 2. The Steam Deck controls make it a lot smoother to play than a mouse.

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- I've heard D2R is really good on the Steam Deck, so I think I'll start with that one. Or maybe PoE.
  
  I've ordered an OLED Deck and I'm looking for games with fun gameplay loops that don't take too much attention since I'll most be playing while watching TV with my partner. ARPGs seem like a perfect match.
  
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I really like Kingdom: Two Crowns on my steam deck.

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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.

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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.

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I rediscovered and fell in love all over again with Phantasy Star Online on the Steam Deck.

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- Wait, I can play pso2 on the deck?! I might have to download it!
  
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  I haven't tried playing PSO2 on the Steam Deck, just the original.
  
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- I’ve never played these games but have always heard about them…maybe now is my chance to check them out!
  
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Fall Guys, have had it on steam since before it got bought by epic, having the SD and looking for good controller-based games right after I first got the deck convinced me to play it. I've played it almost every day since getting my deck in February of last year. Had been getting a bit bored of it just before the constructor update (user built levels), and the fact that it was broken for ~a week after an epic games services update didn't help, but the new constructor levels sucked me back in. I usually play it in the morning to help me wake up, the whole bright colors & tight races thing really help my brain to start turning on.

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- I like fall guys on the steam deck too. But I liked it with the Steam Controller on PC so it's stones skip away
  
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Persona 5 Royal

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- Maybe I'll finally get around to playing the Persona series with my Steam Deck...
  
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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"

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Had a good playthrough of Dishonoured 2 and Death of the Outsider on my Deck. They run extremely well on the Steam Deck and I found a control layout that I liked.

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- Dishonored 2 is on a 90% discount! Just picked it up, never having played it before.
  
  What’s the control layout you found that works best for you?
  
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  I... can't remember! It was a while ago and I've since cleared them off my Deck D:
  
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Hades, Binding of Isaac

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Really enjoying Stranded: Alien Dawn! 3D Rimworld in a nutshell lol that or Songs of Syx!

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I bought a coffee table arcade w a zillion games on it. I mostly play pac man, donkey Kong, galaga. Sometimes my son pities me and will play some two players beatemups. On topic I just ordered an OLED steam deck woop

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