My Steam library basically only consists of Witcher 3 and Spiritfarer. I also was gifted a Humble Bundle game for Batman Arkham Knight.
I’m debating on getting Elden Ring and Cyberpunk (both without DLC).
Marvel’s Spider-Man and FF7 Interograde also look like a good value right now for 40 bucks total.
Edit, ended up doing the following:
Becoming a Steam Family member with my dad and buying the following.
- FFVII Retrograde
- Mass Effect Legendary
- Divinity 1 and 2
- Caveblazers
- Portal 2
- Hollow Knight
I also set up emudeck and transferred all my GBA, GBC, and GCN games that I have ROMS for.
UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves is about 14 bucks and has around 60 hours of some of the best third person gaming I’ve played. Initially I thought it was just a Tomb Raider clone, but both the game mechanics and story are very polished.
Plus it played buttery smooth on my system, though it depends on your settings: https://www.protondb.com/app/1659420?device=steamDeck
The downside is that it eventually ends.
Might be worth a pickup at some point — I had a PS3 back in the day and bought these for full price and played the hell out of them all.
I forgot about Hi-Fi Rush: https://www.protondb.com/app/1817230
Pretty cheap right now and pretty unique gameplay as well.
I really wanted to like Hi-Fi Rush. I had it on gamepass for a few months before my subscription ended but I’m just so bad at rhythm games haha
This is 500+ hours of gameplay:
- Half-Life 2 ($2)
- Portal ($2)
- Portal 2 ($2)
- Psychonauts ($1.5)
- Psychonauts 2 ($9)
- Subnautica ($8)
- Hollow Knight ($8)
- Silksong ($16)
- Hades ($8)
- Disco Elysium ($4)
- The Witcher 3 ($3)
- Terraria ($5)
- Left4Dead 2 ($2)
- Kingdom Come ($5)
- Mass Effect 1, 2, 3 ($6)
Given how many games I absolutely loved are on this list, I feel like our taste in games has a huge overlap and I’m gonna have to try the others
Grim Dawn is < $4
I recommend getting some indie and pixel art style titles instead of just going for AAA. Reason being many of these are cheaper ($5-10, sometimes even less) so you can try different genres, and these titles also tend to sip battery so you will get lots of gameplay time.
Examples I have enjoyed, in no particular order-
Animal Well
Celeste
Stardew Valley
Vampire Survivors
Caveblazers
Balatro
Slay the Spire
I love when I come across a recommendation list like this where they’re all among my all time favorites and one thing I’d never heard of. Caveblazers doesn’t look like my kind of thing but given the context and the sub $1 price I guess I gotta check it out
Animal Well looks amazing! And I’ve heard of Celeste. Been meaning to pick that one up.
In this same vein, I believe Moonlighter is still on sale for 90% off, so $2. Can’t recommend enough. Like if binding of Isaac was also a cozy shopkeeping sim.
Slay the spire.
I really wish I liked Roguelites/deck builders haha.
What do you love?
Story based RPGs mainly. I like longer games with more interesting gameplay recently.
Recently been playing:
Stray (Xbox)
Pokémon Odyssey (iPhone emulated ROM hack)
Expedition 33 (Xbox)
Mass Effect LE (Xbox)
Pokémon Colosseum (iPhone Emulation)
Zenless Zone Zero (mobile)
Wuthering Waves (mobile)
Last night I started up my first playthrough of TW3 as well and tried out some free games I got from giveaways here on the Fediverse, like Spiritfarer.
Specifically with Zenless, I really like the combat there with the parrying mechanics.
Pillars of Eternity
Tyranny
Disco Elysium (just pirate this one, the original creators got swindled out of their company and will see no cent if you buy it, they themselves endorse the piracy)
I second elden ring from another recco. Celeste is one of my favs ever.
Give it a shot. It’s a great game.
I have tried a couple and just don’t care for the gameplay loop as much.
I have tried Dead Cells and Hades for a couple hours.
I’m just gonna chime in to point out those are both realtime combat focused games, requiring reflex and quick thinking, which is a notable departure from roguelike. On the other hand, Slay the Spire is all about careful planning, making decisions one step at a time, taking calculated risks. There’s no turn time limit, no time-based combos or bonuses, or time-gated doors that give you extra items if you go fast enough.
Oh, and also meta-progression. Hades and Dead Cells are both built with a central system of grinding out unlocks and upgrades - in slay the spire, the only meta-progression I know is having to beat the game with each character to unlock the next, and having to complete a few runs with each character to unlock all cards… And then the real progression, where you can continue beating the game with increasing difficulty levels to unlock the next.
Ultimately, this might not matter for you, and even if it does, a slow strategic deckbuilder might still not be for you, and that’s completely fine.
Well it’s not just a roguelite, it is mainly a deckbuilder. Roguelite just happens to be how it is structured.
I was a skeptical too and so far I have only enjoyed roguelites where it was just one of many elements. Slay The Spire or Road Redemption for example.
FTL on the other hand, a true roguelite, I didn’t like at all.
I think its $2.50 right now. You can try it out a little bit and if you don’t like you can always refund?
The Winter Sale goes 8 days still, so you have plenty of time. Some games in example from EA and Ubisoft require additional launcher or an account to play them. I usually avoid them.
Steam Deck Verified: 5 games including Cyberpunk for total $47,8
- Cyberpunk: $ 21
- Ace Combat 7: $4.80
- Resident Evil 2: $10
- Subnautica: $8
- Disco Elysium - The Final Cut: $4
More interesting Steam Deck Verified games
- Hollow Knight: $7.50
- Stardew Valley: $9
- Maneater: $4
- Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition: $4
Also have a look at games that require additional account or launcher:
- Red Dead Redemption 2: $ 15 (Steam Deck Playable, Requires 3rd-Party Account: Rockstar Games)
- Halo Master Chief Collection: $10 (Steam Deck Verified, Requires 3rd-Party Account: Xbox Live)
Even the makers of Disco Elysium request that you don’t legitimately purchase it.
Idk where this rumor came from, but the original makers have never said that lol.
I don’t know if they said it, but if so, I can imagine they had some trouble with the publisher. And now the original developers maybe recommend not to purchase it. Just my guess if it is true.
Everything on that list is great on the deck except Ace Combat 7, which shouldn’t be attempted with anything but a joystick.
For $50 I’d get (afaict current prices):
- Hades ($7.49)
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker ($2.99) (make sure to force-enable the Windows build on the Steam Deck, the Linux build has issues with gamepad input on the kingdom management screen)
- One Deck Dungeon ($1.99)
- Slay the Spire ($2.49)
- Wildermyth ($16.24)
- Against the Storm ($8.99)
- Terraformers ($7.99)
This totals now $48.18. If you have an additional dollar to spare, I’d also recommend to get something to scratch that retro-gaming itch:
- The Settlers 2 ($2.73 on GoG - needs DOSBox, for which I’ve written an install guide)
That’s now $50.91 in total.
A bit dated but definitely worth a look: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/decktop100
Check this out as well: https://store.steampowered.com/charts/steamdecktopplayed/pastyear
Also helpful: https://steam250.com/steam_deck_verified
And finally: https://steamdb.info/stats/gameratings/?min_rating=90&min_reviews=2500&os=steamdeck
Stuff I can recommend for the Deck without the slightest speck of doubt:
I’d recommend Protondb as well https://www.protondb.com/explore
Doom (2016) or Doom Eternal. Both fantastic games, run on anything and I saw Doom Eternal on sale foe 10%.
Not a game recommendation specifically but a money extending protip.
Head over to ITAD and make an account. Then you can get notifications when all the games you’re interested in go on sales from legit resellers (including steam itself). As well as when there’s free games to be had. https://isthereanydeal.com/
Edit: also… if you collect the weekly freebies from epic games you can install heroic games launcher on the steam deck to play those.
Second installing Heroic or Junk Store. Get those Epic freebies, but games in GoG sales as well.
As you are new with the Deck though, using Heroic does involve using desktop mode. If you have Minecraft, you can set up Prism Launcher as well. There’s also EmuDeck for emulating older systems.
This is a bit more involved than just buying Deck verified games on the Steam store though. Get comfortable with it first. Watch some YouTube tutorials.
Yeah that sites great, you can set thresholds for each game if you want to wait until it’s over 50% off or whatever before getting notified. It also imports your steam wishlist.
Edit: also… if you collect the weekly freebies from epic games you can install heroic games launcher on the steam deck to play those.
True, though you don’t get the existing cloud saves so if you’ve started a game already it’s a little annoying.
It also imports your steam wishlist
Can also directly import from gog, hb, and fanatical. EGS is on the todo list also once they have an api or even just a public facing library. All this time and egs is still pretty bare bones on features.
True, though you don’t get the existing cloud saves so if you’ve started a game already it’s a little annoying.
That’s annoying. I wonder how hard it would be to just copy or use some kind of sync to move the files yourself.
If you’re not one of these people who has to have everything running at 60fps to enjoy it, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is only £26.99 ($29.99) at the moment, and is a great game for hours of play, albeit you have to turn the gfx down.
I’ll second this. Great game. Definitely more than playable on SD.
Forbidden West struggles a bit more, definitely on the edge of playable, but I still enjoy it 🤷♂️ When I’m home I’ll usually stream from my PC though, looks better. You really sacrifice a lot for Forbidden West on SD.
Tomb Raider Survival Trilogy for $7.19
Shadow of Mordor/War for $6.99
Prodigal for $1.49 - Zelda plus date sim
Toem for $3.99 - gotta photograph em all
Crosscode for $5.99 - SPMMOOTY
Saint’s Row 4 $2.99
Vampire Survivors for $3.74 - everybody is legally required to have a copy
20 Small Mazes for $0 Doronko Wanko $0
My main recommendation is “don’t put all of your money into a bunch of PS5 AAA games”. PS5-ish games fit “if we turn all of the settings down, and render in 1/4 rez, and then AI upscale, and still your battery only lasts an hour”. It often isn’t a great experience here.
A strength of the Deck is in delivering an endless back catalog of PS4 and prior styles of games. Another is in bringing forward a ton of indie games that can’t win at “marketing”, can’t afford to develop PS5-level visuals, so they fight like hell on “mixing up new and interesting gameplay” and “price”.
That’s a fair point. I’ll keep that in mind while I play.
I’d heavily reccomend Balatro if you like card games.
Also Portal 2 if you haven’t played it, it’s a really good puzzle game. Despite it being a sequel, you don’t really need the context from Portal 1 to play it through.
Forgot about Portal 2! I picked up Portal 1 ages ago on Xbox 360 haha. I will definitely grab it.
While the Deck is capable of running some big AAA games, I personally find that it shines in the low-power, “chill” games that you can play for a while, put down, and come back to when you’ve got some more time.
I’m a big fan of RPGs, so my #1 recommendation is Sea of Stars. Dragon Quest: Builders is also good, along with it’s sequel, which is arguably better.
A good multiplayer game with endless hordes of monsters vs. your magic is The Spell Brigade.
You may not know this, but the Deck can also be plugged into a TV or monitor, and with the help of a USB-C hub, can support a keyboard and mouse too! If you go that route, then I can’t recommend Dyson Sphere Program enough. Ooh! and Timberborn! It’s both adorable and beautifully designed.
If you’re more of a 3rd-person shooter type, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is fan-fucking-tastic (my favourite series of all time) and it’s currently on sale for £5. There are 3 games in the series, and make sure you start with the first one! You don’t regret it.
Finally, note that you’re not bound to the Steam store if you don’t want to be. If you install the Heroic Launcher for example, you can get DRM-Free games from GOG for example. Sometimes you’ll find that games are available on both platforms, but cheaper on one of the other, and GOG games don’t come with controls on how many people can be playing it at the same time.
I loved playing the Dyson Sphere Program, but the controls without mouse and keyboard felt impossible to me, so I stopped playing it altogether since gaming mostly on the Stema Deck. Have you got any tips for making the controls work better?
Sadly, no. That game is definitely keyboard-only. Though I have played successfully with a goals Bluetooth keyboard and mouse in the past.
Some games just don’t lend themselves well to a controllers based input.
On the chill games topic; Reus 2 has most of my deck (train commute) play time if I’m honest. Great chill puzzle/strategy game.
Balatro and Slay the Spire both play great on the Deck and have amazing replayability.
