[Discussion] What games are you playing on your deck? - August 2023

Fubarberry@sopuli.xyzmod to Steam Deck@sopuli.xyz – 171 points –

What games are your currently plaything through on your deck? Would you recommend them to other players?

147

Just finished Doom 2016. Runs smooth as silk, and the controls are great. Just starting Hollow Knight now.

Good to hear about more people playing Hollow Knight. It’s excellent, and I highly recommend avoiding story spoilers until you’ve finished the main quests.

Tiny text and 40s eyes cause me to want to play a lot of stuff docked, but Hollow Knight was a fantastic experience on the Deck.

I have a Diablo 4 addiction. It runs surprisingly well on my Deck. Only problem is it requires the internet, so I can't play it anywhere outside of the house.

I'm baffled by how poorly Diablo 4 handles "mediocre" connections. I have been using T-Mobile Home Internet for a while and I'm even able to stream GeForce Now reasonably well, but I run into lag spikes on Diablo 4.

I don't think it's a network problem. I think Diablo has a memory leak that causes issues that are especially noticeable on the Steam Deck. I've heard it's getting patched out soon, but not sure where I got that info from. One of my Discord friends I think...

I can pretty well track my performance issues to network performance. If I play in the morning when TMHI is performing better I don't see any issues, while in the evening when the network is congested I run into lag.

I know I'll probably pick it up eventually, but I wanted to wait and see if Blizzard ruined the game through the early patches. Diablo 3 eventually turned out good, but playing during the launch year was a rough experience.

Besides, if I wait long enough there's now hope they'll release it on steam.

I was actually quite impressed with how Blizzard revived D3 with Reaper of Souls and its Item 2.0. They had some really bold and new (for the time) ideas and it worked.

But that was Blizzard of old and I have very little faith that they're able to pull the same revival off on D4. The campaign was interesting, sort of, but beyond that: an awkward compromise between D2 and D3, and without the panache of either.

I suppose it's worth playing at least once.

I've been playing a lot of No Man's Sky, but just picked up Shadows of Doubt and have been having a blast with that.

Shadows of Doubt has a weird bug where loading into the initial menu takes several minutes instead of a few seconds. Edit: Update came out today that fixed this! Haven't figured out why yet, but the developer is working on a fix and the game runs pretty decently outside of that. Using a community control scheme is recommended because the default controller scheme leaves something to be desired.

I picked up Shadows of Doubt a month or so ago and it seemed quite juddery (on my PC mind, not the deck). Has the performance improved over time? It really seems like a game I could sink my teeth into but the performance issues made me put it down for now

I know the dev's current priority is fixing bugs and performance issues, so it may run better now than when you tried it.

It runs acceptably on deck. Inside performance is great but the fps would tank outside. I had to disable a lot of the visual effects and drop the resolution slightly to keep a stable 30 outside. Honestly looks pretty good though even on the lower settings.

I’ve just wishlisted Shadows of Doubt. Seems interesting.

Fanatical actually has it on sale right now for 30% off. Biggest sale on steam so far is just a 20% sale, so the fanatical deal is pretty good.

Dave the diver. Game keeps so surprising me, its so good! 30 hours in and it feels like i just started, works flawless on the deck aswell.

I'm hoping to get a chance to start Elden Ring and Middle Earth Shadow of War this weekend

Grim Fandango! The Steam Deck is perfect for finally tackling my backlog of older games. Also finished 198X recently which was short but good.

198X seems cool. I tend to play lots of older games on my deck too, mostly old DOS/Windows releases which can run with Wine/Proton or Dosbox for me.

Yep, it's a great throwback for sure.

Stardew valley, mini motorways, Mario kart 8 and subnautica.

Link's Awakening on my spare time. I've also spent several hours modding Skyrim, eager to see how that turns out

Can you please describe how you made Link's Awakening run on the Deck? Is it the new, remastered version that is currently available for the Switch? I'm interested in getting Twilight Princess for the Deck somehow...

I emulate it using Yuzu. Ryujinx might be an option, but I haven't tried it because it runs great on Yuzu already. If you're looking to install several emulators, give Emudeck a try. There are several guides around to get everything ready (don't rush it!).

Thanks for the pointers! Is there a way to legally obtain ROMs for these games if I don't own actual physical games? I don't even know if WII could have games delivered online, or it only used physical cartridges.

You're asking the wrong person :)

I would think there is no way for Wii games without physically owning them.

Finished Dave the Diver, loved it!

Now playing Halls of Torment, have played and finished Vampire Hunters, HOT is a bit different, I miss the swinging music of VH. that said it's fun to figure out and explore HOT.

Played again The Outer Worlds and DLCs a couple weeks back and preferred the deck experience over my first play-through on the XBox. Currently playing High on Life and I'm not really convinced, way to linear and controls are... not really optimal.

All time favorite: No Man's Sky, Stardew Valley, Witcher3

Blasphemous right now. Plays excel·lent bar some issues with resolution. Changing resolution can result in the game freezing when doing an attack, and it keeps happening even if you relaunch the game. I found somewhere that shutting off and on the deck solves it, and it's true.

As for gameplay having downed three bosses (+ the tutorial one at the start), it's fun! Maybe too cryptic for my taste, I've had to open a guide a couple of times. But the gameplay it's tight and challenging.

Track mania. It’s a little addictive. Though I’m not good enough to participate in the online events, yet.

Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Being able to pause and resume at any time and from wherever I'm taking my steam deck has been fantastic for the whole Yakuza series. It has kind of become my dedicated Yakuza machine, lol.

Lost judgment will be next!

Yeah, exactly! The Yakuza games are really bad about surprisingly holding you hostage. I was playing though Yakuza Like a Dragon and had a 1.5 hour dungeon/boss fight/cutscenes sequence with no save points in between, and the deck's sleep function was absolutely crucial.

Sacred RPG black edition, finding the community keyboard layout surprisingly easy to use, I'm almost ready to say I wish the keyboard would go to the touchpads in game instead of bringing up the keyboard overlay to enter text.

Inscryption, but I'm not sure how much more I can inflict on myself, starting over continually is just so frustrating, especially when the early game options are so few and I can easily see a loss coming.

One of these days I'll get around up red dead redemption 2 or the Witcher 3, I've got about an hour into both of them.

Mini metro and mini motorways, as well as dwarf romantik, such great ways to lull into slumber.

I recently went full m+kb and have been playing 4x games, age of wonders 3, civ 5 and 6, and Warhammer Total war 2, they all run great on the deck!

I'd highly suggest sticking with Inscryption, it's very worth the investment. You can explore the room as well, and get more cards from solving puzzles in the room.

I really wish the devs copied the controller scheme from the PlayStation version into the steam version.

Mini motorways controls are so comfortable it spoilt Mini metro (on the Deck) for me :(

I can't stop playing brotato. I say I'll do one more then another hour passes.

How you do feel about it compared to the others like Halls of Torment and Rogue Genesia?

I'll be honest. This is the first time I've ever heard of either of those games. It's just a really good turn off brain game if that makes sense

Dead cells
Got it in the summer sales and the deck is a great way to play it

I've been on a Binding of Isaac binge. I thought that I had my fill with it over the years but the deck has really put a new life into it. It's a perfect fit. And I am finding myself playing it again even on the desktop. I thought that I wasn't gonna need Repentence but I guess I will have to get it now.

I have 1000 hours on Repentance on Steamdeck and it’s fantastic. Really recommend it

It's my favorite game. Deck is great for it. Isaac anywhere. Great battery life on it too.

What control layout are you using? I tried to install this a while back (maybe a year ago?) And at the time the control layouts I found were horrible and made it no fun to play.

I was used to the standard layout from playing on the desktop so I didn't even bother to look at alternatives: move with left stick, shoot with buttons, activate items with triggers and bumpers.

I am curious which part are you unhappy with. Should be easy to customize.

I'd have to go back and reinstall. Maybe I did something wrong, but I remember it like, not even working to control it.

I am somewhat of a patient gamer so I tend to focus on few years old games.

Currently playing Valkyria Chronicles which works pretty well on deck ( I hate how finicky accurate aiming is ). Non-interactive visual novel storytelling and turn based combat puzzles works really well for short periodic gaming moments.

Just finished Salt & Sanctuary and the remastered Grim Fandango. Both great on deck and good games overall

Been playing the guardians of the Galaxy game on it. It's a blast

I've just this evening started playing Hogwarts Legacy. Spent most of my time tweaking it to get it to run as well as I think it can do.

Kentucky Route Zero, quite a mythical experience I would say.

I lately I’ve been playing elden ring since I got it on sale but before that I mostly used it to emulate a bunch of older titles. Love the consoles versatility

How does Elden Ring run on it? I've already played it on Xbox but I'm thinking a second play through might be in order on the Steamdeck.

I played it start to finish on my deck using the co-op mod to play 2 player with my brother (who lives out of state). I also ran discord in the background on the deck, using headphones and the deck's mic. Didn't have any problems at all, super fun.

It’s nothing spectacular, but I can usually get a decent frame rate if I keep the settings down

Thanks to the Baldur’s Gate 3 hype, decided to finally jump into a CRPG and went with Divinity Original Sin 2 DE after trying Pillars of Eternity DE. I tried before, but didn’t have the right mindset.

Loving DOS2 now!

It's a classic. I'm going to revisit it after my BG3 playthrough. I never did complete it previously.

Steamworld Heist and Olli Olli World. They fit what I want to play on the Deck: bite sized, good for lounging, a little more simple than what I want to play when I'm sitting at my desktop.

All the steamworld games are SO GOOD. I can't wait for Build later this year. The demo is already wonderful.

Just finished Lone Fungus and started Haiku the Robot. Both great little 2D metroidvanias.

A healthy mix of:

  • Borderlands 1. Still getting used to playing fps on a controller. But flickstick+gyro sure helps.
  • Brotato
  • 20 Minutes Till Dawn

ETA: also, I should put some more time in Tunic.

Barony! It just had a big update release yesterday, part of which was a UI overhaul that made it much more playable with a controller. Runs flawlessly on the Deck with compatability set to Proton mode; prior to the update I had issues running the default native Linux version (text and textures were garbled) but have not tried on the new patch.

It is a roguelike that feels more like actual Rogue or Nethack than anything I have played in a while and has great co-op support. I was having lots of fun learning the game before the update and am excited to spend more time with it, if the voxel-y graphics are not a turn off I definitely recommend it! Works well for shorter play sessions.

I used to play that game, I think I will add it to the deck, thanks!

I'm finishing spider-man and will start miles morales after that

I just finished Tohu, Kraken academy and Killer Paradise.

Killer Paradise was really cool. All success unlocked.

Kraken Academy was good but the loop is a little boring and the plot easy to guess. Some jokes were funny. All success unlocked too.

Tohu was good despite easy puzzle and very short.

I’m going for Remnant from the ashes, and trying to push a little more into ghostwire tokyo, and i’m tempted by Disco Elysium on the Humble Choice this month.

Also i will try grime, and waiting to be with friends to coop on fury unleashed.

I just started Bioshock 2 Remastered. It runs surprisingly well.

Why surprisingly?

There's been a few recent remasters that weren't optimized well, but this one runs at 40 fps with no adjustments. I was expecting 30-35 at best.

Thps3 and pikmin 3.

Although I'm likely to buy baldursg gate 3 in a couple days once I've heard how it holds up

I got THPS 1+2 on epic and heroic. It's so beautiful.

I didnt think it was available on pc since I couldn't find it on steam. I guess I have to figure out getting heroic set up now :)

Just finished Death Stranding. It's mostly great but somehow crashed a fair bit halfway through the game. No issues or whatsoever in early and late to end game.

Mixolumia.

I haven't been playing much lately, and when I do sit down to play I don't feel like putting a ton of effort into anything. Mixolumia is easy to pick up and put down.

Hadn't heard of Mixolumia before, but it looks interesting.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and Super Mario Galaxy 2

How is hellblade running on yours? I haven't tried it for a year.

I'm running it at 40FPS/Medium-ish/FSR Ultra and it's going well! I could make it consume less battery but It looks good now!

The shaders don't look good though, some look pixelated but overall it's a good experience

Control, after finishing quantum break and Alan wake before.

Control is really good, I beat it earlier this year.

I have Alan Wake and Quantum Break in my library, going to try to play them later once I catch up on some other parts of my backlog.

Both good games as well and they run flawless on the SD. It’s also fun to compare the games side by side and see the progress (mostly).

Been playing a bit of Close Combat 3: The Russian Front. Picked it up from the summer sale and I've been wanting to try this series for as long as I've known about it (I think I read about CC2 in a gaming mag when it was new). Fun game but not the easiest to get running and nobody seems to be playing the games in this series with Deck of even a controller so I didn't really find any controller mapping for it. WNot a huge issue since the game is fairly easy to control even with just a mouse.

I tend to play lots of strategy games and such that usually rely on the mouse quite a bit, the deck is such a great device for this use case.

Red dead redempion 2, Doom Eternal, Team fortress 2

Just finished up Assassin's Creed 2 - my all-time favorite game but first time playing since I had my Xbox 360. I remembered the free-running/parkour being a bit finicky but this time around it was just infuriating. Also had a hard time with some of the controls being bound correctly (navigating the map being the worst offender). I still recommend the game because the campaign, the modern day story, and the historical conspiracies sub-plot are just too good IMO. I just also found a good chunk of my time spent yelling at Ezio to jump where I wanted him to go.

Started up Dinkum for some casual play - just have an hour or so played but seems to be good so far. Not sure how much I'll play of it - I get kind of bored with this style of game. Looking for some pointers with getting started. (Same thing happened with Stardew Valley for me)

Spyro Reignited has been really fun to pickup for quick play sessions. I do get more stutters than I'd expect on the Deck when loading levels. Think my graphics are all set to medium so prob need to tinker to get those smoothed out. Definitely recommend this game though.

Tales of Phantasia, Far Cry 4, Control, Divinity 2, Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster.

Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is like, the 4th version of FF1 I've played and the most polished. Would definitely recommend.

I like the setting of Far Cry 4, but I think I was more engaged by Far Cry 3's story.

Divinity 2 is way different than any other game in the series, being a 3rd person action RPG. It's ok. Nothing to write home about.

Tales of Phantasia I'm playing the PS1 version translated from Japanese. It's the first game in the long running Tails series, and is absolutely wonderful. I'm near the end and just found out that the best version is the PSP copy that comes bundled in Tales of Phantasia X Nakiri Dungeon, the sequel, and has full voice acting(albeit in Japanese). The only version that made it to the states is the far inferior GBA version, which I own a physical copy of, but I am currently WAY further than I ever got on GBA.

Control is absolutely one of the best games I've ever played. Thr rich lore, superb game play, relatively glitch free, full sense of progression, metroidvania-like in its design, plenty of side quests, diversions, and collectibles. 10/10

I've been absolutely slamming Persona 5 Royal. I've ran into a couple odd hard freezes with the game, but I'm about 60 hours in at this point so it clearly hasn't stopped me.

Would absolutely recommend!

Just finished Lil Gator Game which was such a charming little game. The writing was great and the achievements were even painless to wrap up after I rolled credits. Super cute and cozy, do recommend.

Otherwise, still chugging along on Octopath Traveler II which is a big improvement over the first game imo. Between a willingness to play with the camera angles, more flexible story structures, and some good QOL, this is definitely a much more enjoyable experience for me than the first.

So, I got some games from the sale and slowly started playing them a little...

Slay the Spire seems to be quite liked, but it's not really my thing. Beat the game with three of the four characters I have access to and it still hasn't really "clicked". If somebody could explain to me what makes this game so (supposedly) great, maybe I'd be able to appreciate it a little better?

I also got Redout 2, because I really enjoyed the first part and thought the second should be at least as good. So far I like it, seems like a graphics upgrade and some gameplay enhancements from the first part. However, with ai assist disabled, the difficulty curve seems to be brutally steep. Also, even though I have only played like 8 tutorials and 3 campaign tracks so far, I have already had some issues with clipping through the course after jumps, which might turn into a rather annoying trait if it remains an issue. Still, would recommend. It's a beautiful antigravity racer with terrific "car" mechanics.

Apart from that, I got the gog version of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri running (although the videos don't work). It's kind of my comfort game which I keep returning to.

Regarding StS, I think you've given it a fair shot if you've completed it with three characters already. If you still want to press on, then I found the fourth character really fun and engaging. I didn't try that many difficulty levels (think I made it to 4 with the Ironclad), but I really liked the daily challenge as well to mix it up and quickly feel powerful in my runs.

I always think of Slay the Spire as my gateway drug into other deckbuilding games such as Monster train and Griftlands, so if you've enjoyed the card aspect of it, maybe give one of those a shot? (Or stay clear of them if you hated that part)

Only just got my Deck. Still in the process of doing upgrades and mods. But while I have been testing my overclock and cooling mods and whatnot, I have put a few hours into Elden Ring and it's awesome on the Deck. The load times are insanely fast compared to my actual high-end gaming laptop. Looking forward to starting a new save on the Deck, after I have everything setup the way I want it. Waiting on a 2tb ssd to replace the 1tb that I just put in the a few days ago. Need to get that swap done before I can finish the cooling mod.

I've also put a couple of hours into the Demon Slayer game while testing. That game runs at a locked 60 fps, and plays amazingly.

Just finished Earthbound, now Mother 3.

Yakuza 0, and God of War as well.

Mother 3 is a bit different from Earthbound, I am not sure i would recommend it to everyone. Yakuza 0 is a great game though.

Earthbound is my favorite game ever! Absolute classic.

I'm playing Omori right now which is similar in a lot of right ways.

Omori

Thanks for the recommendation!

Earthbound is absolutely perfect to play on the Deck. Everything is easy to read, you can play it anywhere, pause and resume is extremely fast (obviously) and battery life is exceptional as a SNES does not take much to run.

Yeah! I'll have to play it on the deck. It's been a while since I've done a run anyway.

If you play Omori it'll be clear why it's similar very quickly. However so far it's definitely darker in tone, so be prepared for that.

I've enjoyed both Yakuza 0 and God of War on my deck. Initially I had issues with God of War crashing due to the game's memory leak issue, but upping my swap file size fixed that for me.

I got the Deck from Summer Sale and since then I've been playing:

  • Horizon Zero Dawn
    • Been waiting to play this one for years, but haven't had Playstation since PS2 or proper desktop PC in years. SD fulfilled all my expectations, never getting a desktop PC anymore!
  • Halls of Torment
    • Enjoyed Vampire Survivors on Xbox, enjoying this one
  • Hogwarts Legacy
    • Seems really "meh", so played only couple of hours.

Nova Drift is a great asteroids rogue like.

Castlevania IV from the advance collection (and it's frustrating AF) trying to do all of the classic castlevanias but I may hang this one up and move on. I feel like I spend more time fighting the controls than the platforming.

About two hours into Chained Echos after finishing Cosmic Star Heroine. I always have to have a jrpg going.

Cities Skylines cause I'm hyped for C:S2. Also started and finished Layers of Fear 2, great game!

I play way too much FFXIV on mine, but been playing Baba is You, FFIX, Muse Dash, Downwell, Powerwash Sim, Slime Rancher 2 as well... I'm stoked that it plays the Lies of P demo pretty well!

I'm currently playing Batman Arkam Knight after buying at a huge discount last week. It works flawlessly on Deck and it looks gorgeous even on the small screen, the game is also great fun; absolutely recommended!

Currently playing FFXIV and Pumpkin Jack. I'm also testing out Space Engineers. I'm surprised it works.

Skul The Hero Slayer Horizon Turbo Chase

I'm currently playing 7 Days to Die. I'm late to the game but with the new Alpha 21 update it runs pretty well on the Deck. I had to rework some of the bindings and set the loader to Vulkan compatibility but I'm getting a consistent 45 to 60 fps in all but the most crowded cities. Haven't gone past my 3rd horde night so I'm not sure how the masses are going to cripple the game. Having a lot of fun though.

I just beat and got 100% achievements in Ender Lilies. Solid metroidvania.

With the release of Book of Hours just around the corner, I dug out Cultist Simulator again. It runs well enough on the Steam Deck, but it needs mouse input (-> touchpads), and sometimes it flickers (this seems to be related to autosaves).

Overall it works well enough on the Deck so that it's fun to play. The flickering is annoying though.

darkest dungeon, mechanicus, the dishonnered series, witcher, ff7 crisis remaster, smash bros, random pokemon hacks, deus ex hr

I did limbo, guacemelee, inside. I started a cyberpunk game too, but switched to platform then.

It's been mostly Diablo 4 for me, but I'm also playing a ton of Picross via Yuzu. While I own these games on Switch, I really much more prefer the feel of Steam Deck in my hands.

Understandable, it was really hard going back to the switch when TotK came out.

The discomfort of playing on the tiny switch after getting used to the deck was what finally motivated me to hack my switch so I could legally get game roms and save files off of it.

Working my way through the first few Resident Evil games. Currently playing the second remake one.

I got mine recently and have been playing a little bit of a lot of different stuff, but the thing I've put the most hours into has been Midnight Suns. I did not expect a Marvel game to my new favorite turn-based tactics deckbuilder, lol.

The stupid open world collectible part blows chunks, but the actual core gameplay is shockingly fun, if not perfectly tuned the way some deckbuilders are. The extremely weird lightweight high school dating sim / bioware relationship management aspect is very odd but produces some extremely funny interactions at times.

Horizon Zero Dawn, Super Hexagon and Hollow Knight. I tend to play Hollow Knight more often because Horizon Zero Dawn really drains the battery.

I just played Spider-Man Remastered. Had a blast. Thought I might get motion sick swinging around, but it wasn't an issue at all.

A smaller screen probably helps reduce the chance of motion sickness.

Finished The Last of Us Part 1 today. Now working on my Animal Crossing island 🏝️

I’ve been playing a handful of games:

  • Demon’s Tilt: an excellent pinball game that runs great on the Deck. Also, the pixel art is very nice.

  • Hades: a great roguelike, finishing the last few side quests now.

  • Void Scrappers: a fun little survivors-like. Cheap and addictive.

  • Cassette Beasts: similar to Pokémon, if Pokémon had actually innovated in the last few years. Awesome mechanics, and all the battles are doubles matches.

Demon's Tilt has been on my radar for awhile now. I've really enjoyed non-traditional pinball games like Metroid Prime Pinball and Yoku's Island Express, Demon's Tilt looks closer to a traditional table than those two but still seems like it goes beyond what a physical table could do.

Edit: just got notified by steam that the sequel to Demon's Tilt just released: XenoTilt

Days Gone. Looks good, runs well, fun game. Almost at 60 hours so far but end is in sight. Got a few in mind after I finish but not quite decided yet.

Just started Elden Ring for the first time a few days back. First game I played where I was generally blown away how well it runs and looks for a handheld PC.

None. I got it so my partner could play video games on the couch with me while I'm smackin moblins in Hyrule.