Best Games for Steam Deck: How Far Will The Hardware Go?

Valve's latest - and arguably greatest - foray into PC gaming hardware has now been revealed, and boy is it already making waves in the gaming community. From outright hostility from certain niches to abject adoration from other certain niches - the as-of-yet unreleased Steam Deck is a veritable hoot no matter where you stand. But, the big question remains mostly unanswered: what will be the best games for Steam Deck? What is it even capable of running?

We've already seen heaps of misinformation and confusion surrounding the Steam Deck. Today, we aim to clarify as much as we can about its capabilities. After all, a comprehensive spec sheet is virtually useless if you don't have any context of what any of it means, right?

Now, to be entirely frank, you may wish to take this article with the tiniest pinch of salt. The simple truth is that none of us have yet had any hands-on time with the Steam Deck, and we cannot be 100% certain on how it will perform. Having said that, there's a lot of information out in the wild, if you know where to look. Before we get to game recommendations, let's set the expectations right first!

Is the Steam Deck Powerful?

Right off the bat, it should be clear that the Steam Deck is not nearly as powerful as current-generation consoles. It does, however, seem to be about as capable as the last generation's baseline PlayStation 4, which is downright incredible for a tiny form-factor PC. It's a more efficient generation of hardware, of course, and that alone allows the Steam Deck to be as portable as it is.

Having said that, do not expect 4K gaming out of Valve's up-and-coming handheld "console". With specs that are designed specifically to run games well at the relatively minuscule 800p resolution, we can't help but feel that 1080p gaming will be the highest you'll want to go with this piece of kit. Naturally, it does support USB-C docks, but it's highly unlikely that the admittedly amazing AMD APU will be able to push playable frames at high pixel counts.

Our expectations should, therefore, be kept in check by the onboard visual output of the handheld. From everything we've seen so far, thankfully, 800p gaming should mostly be a breeze on the Steam Deck.

What are the official hardware specifications?

While we've already seen what AMD's Zen 2 APU processors are capable of, we haven't yet had the chance to give an RDNA 2-enabled APU a spin. As some of you are bound to know, this is the same processing architecture as that of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles, except in a smaller form factor. Far more capable than anything we've yet seen in this particular section of the market.

As you can see, these are some really impressive specifications for a handheld PC. Just a few years back, the idea of a PS4-level handheld would've had you laughed out of the room. In 2021, though, Valve is looking to make that a reality.

Other PC gaming handheld devices?

Now, while we do have a more comprehensive specification comparison in production, we thought we'd offer a short look back at how the Steam Deck compares to other PC gaming handhelds. As you may be aware, this niche has been getting reasonably saturated over the past year or so. With the release of Valve's Steam Deck, we'll have a grand total of six different PC handheld machines on the market, which is totally nuts.

Generally speaking, the Steam Deck is looking to be considerably more powerful than the closest runner-up - the Aya Neo - and it may well dominate the niche for a little while. Note, though, that we're not even considering the pricing here. Whereas any other PC handheld usually starts at about $800 at best, you'll be able to buy the Steam Deck for half that!

Steam Deck Games - Primed for Success?

Now that you're aware of all the basics, the question that remains is simple: how could we possibly know what games will or will not run properly on the Steam Deck? Really, the mere idea of being able to say what the best games for Steam Deck are seems reasonably far away. The good news, though, is that setting up a baseline isn't that hard.

Really, all we need to do is to look at which games run well on the Aya Neo and the GPD Win 3, for example, and we'll have a good idea of what to expect. Somewhat inelegant, we know, but it'll have to make do until we have a chance to benchmark things properly.

General expectations for the Steam Deck

Given that the Steam Deck is a PC, it's going to technically be able to run virtually anything you'd be able to run on any other PC. From Windows, all the way to the Epic Games Store (and its heaps of freebies) - Gabe Newell himself has attested to the Deck's innate openness and malleability.

Having said that, should we expect a handheld PC to run the latest and greatest AAA releases? Well, surprisingly enough, the answer seems to be a resounding yes! We've already seen - admittedly short - stretches of gameplay of the following AAA titles on Steam Deck:

These games are no joke. Though Doom Eternal and Death Stranding do run reasonably well on virtually anything, we can attest to Control and Jedi - Fallen Order both being reasonably hardware-intensive. Naturally, it's to be expected that the Steam Deck will require visual downgrades for games to run well, but the important bit to consider here is that a small 7-inch screen doesn't need maximum settings for games to look great on it. If these games run at medium settings with a mostly stable 60 FPS, we'll be thrilled.

So far, things are definitely looking up.

What Are The Best Games for Steam Deck, then?

Now, given that Steam Deck is a PC - and we cannot overstate the importance of this fact - there's a couple of important things you need to keep in mind when it comes to game availability expectations. The most important one, without the tiniest sliver of a doubt, is that the entirety of your Steam account is apparently going to be accessible on the Steam Deck.

The way that works is that the Steam Deck runs native Windows games through Proton - Valve's own open-source solution for Linux gaming. As of right now, the vast majority of Steam games is already playable via Proton, with the final hurdle being its implementation of anti-cheat solutions that some developers and publishers use. Valve's experts have announced that they expect 100% of Steam's game library to be compatible with Proton by the time the Deck is out. Neat, right?

But where does that put us? What games would we - hypothetically - be able to play on the Steam Deck? Well, here's a short cheat sheet, followed up by a few of our own game recommendations!

Steam Deck: Supported Game & Platform List

Generally speaking, any given Steam Deck is going to be just a few steps away from playing anything and everything under the sun. Of course, even if you're not big on legal emulation via ROM ripping, you still have an incredibly massive library of PC games to choose from. Remember - this is not a console. You can play any game that ever came out on PC on your Steam Deck. In fact, yours truly is incredibly excited at the prospect of playing Morrowind and Deus Ex on a small handheld.

Best Games for Steam Deck - Modern Releases

We won't dawdle too much here - what follows is just a short list of the more recent games that we think will play phenomenally well on the Steam Deck. Expect a more comprehensive overview of the playable games with performance benchmarks as soon as we get our paws on one of these devices!

We're 90% sure that the Steam Deck will be able to handle all of the above games with ease. So, if you'd like to snag them, check for discounts and keep track of our sales! With the Steam Deck slated to start being shipped in December of 2021, that's more than enough time to stock up on all the best games you could possibly play on it. Have fun collecting!

Final Thoughts

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For the more technically-inclined gamers, the upcoming Steam Deck has the ridiculous potential of running literally tens of thousands of games at awesome framerates. That statement alone is incredible in and of itself. Though, depending on how keen you are on tweaking things and fiddling with settings, you may wish to limit your gaming experience to the more contemporary Steam releases.

Regardless, what we're looking at here is a PC gaming revolution, no less. The ability to play virtually any of the games you ever bought on Steam is mind-boggling, and the fact that you're not limited by artificial software solutions or hardware generations means that you can play anything you want, anywhere you want.

None of this is fiction by any stretch of the imagination, either. Heck, a number of handheld PC gaming devices already do precisely what the Steam Deck aims to do. Except, Valve's expertise in hardware production and their own onboard gaming-focused operating system - and not to mention impeccable pricing - promise a far more approachable solution for all of us. Are you as excited at the prospect of this as we are?

Stay tuned for more Steam Deck content in the coming days and weeks!

Valve’s latest – and arguably greatest – foray into PC gaming hardware has now been revealed, and boy is it already making waves in the gaming community. From outright hostility from certain niches to abject adoration from other certain niches – the as-of-yet unreleased Steam Deck is a veritable hoot no matter where you stand. But, the big question […]