Valve’s Steam Deck | Best Games and Genres

Valve’s highly anticipated Steam Deck will hit the market in just a couple of months (barring any unforeseen delay) and, on the off-chance you’re on of the many who had put in a pre-order, you’re probably thinking about the many games which you intend to install once this peculiar console reaches your doorstep. The Steam Deck will be a fair bit more powerful than most folks expect, but it was never actually designed for triple A gaming on the go — no matter what Valve might tell you.

The fact that it can, for instance, run Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t mean it should. In fact, we’d go as far as to say that playing some of these genre-defining titles on such a (relatively) underpowered system would be a disservice to both the game and the player.

Be that as it may, Valve’s Steam Deck will still be able to deliver an enjoyable gaming experience; you’ll just need to pick and choose your games and genres with a bit more care — a more curated approach is definitely the way the go. You should never forget the fact that this little machine, powerful though it may be, still has its limitations; it can only draw so much power and push so many frames. It’s true that integrated graphics cards have improved leaps and bounds over the last few years but they’re still nowhere near as powerful enough to replace the good old dedicated GPUs we all know and love.

If you keep these limitations in mind, you’ll no doubt be satisfied with this portable gaming PC — one that could, by all means, entertain you for the years to come!

Sports & Racing Games

Playing sports games on Valve’s Steam Deck is all but guaranteed to be a good time! They’re not overly demanding hardware-wise and will surely look great on Steam Deck’s 800p screen. The same goes for racing games like Forza Horizon 4. This particular title runs like a dream on integrated graphics cards and with RDNA 2 delivering up to a +50% performance uplift, you can expect to reach well over 60 FPS at Medium/High settings!

That’s the sweet spot: not sacrificing graphical fidelity or resolution and yet still being able to reach that oh-so-important 60 FPS mark!

Digital Card Games

This one is a no-brainer: playing digital card games like Magic: The Gathering Arena, Legends of Runeterra, and Hearthstone — with both physical and touch controls — will undoubtedly be a spectacular experience on Valve’s Steam Deck! Its screen is also large enough for you to see just the right amount of information, something that’ll be of great importance if you’re into MTG and end up with a highly populated board!

Older Titles

This one goes without saying, but it still warrants a mention: playing older titles — by which we mean anything that came out before 2016(ish) — is not only an option but is wholly recommended, too! Take Batman: Arkham Knight, for instance. We’re talking about a spectacular title that runs at well over 30 FPS at 900p on last generation Vega iGPUs. If we factor in the previously mentioned RDNA 2 performance gains, you’ll no doubt be able to push the settings up to Medium if not even High without any penalty in terms of FPS. Stunning stuff, for sure!

The same goes for thousands upon thousands of older titles like GTA V, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and many others. These games are now fully playable on-the-go, so, by all means, “thumb through” your back catalogue as you’re sure to stumble across a few gems!

Roguelites

This oh-so-peculiar genre seemingly came out of nowhere and basically took the world by storm. Even those who were initially opposed to its existence quickly took a liking — and it really is an acquired taste. But once it grabs ahold of you it’s nigh impossible to break free and, well, a part of you doesn’t even want to.

Roguelites are absolutely perfect for Valve’s Steam Deck as they’re not especially demanding hardware-wise. You’ll be able to reach a constant 60 FPS with ease and, with Steam Deck’s stellar control scheme, it might become the absolute best portable platform to experience these peculiar nerve-wracking titles!

And, better yet, when you get back home from your journeys, a single USB-C cable (and an appropriate display) is all that’ll separate you from a more immersive gaming experience!

Indies

This one is a bit of a no-brainer, but we still have to mention it: any kind of indie title will run like a dream on Valve’s Steam Deck — games like Inside, Limbo, Undertale, Celeste, Stardew Valley, Disco Elysium, Braid, Cuphead, Bastion, Super Meat Boy, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Firewatch, What Remains of Edith Finch, Fez, and so many others will look stunning on Steam Deck’s 7″ display!

And, well, they’re often fairly petite in terms of file size, which means you’ll be able to install a bunch of them even on the base model with 64GB of eMMC storage!

Fighting Games

Valve’s Steam Deck is a dream come true for any fighting game enthusiast! First of all, its controls are supposedly quite stellar — and that includes the better-than-average d-pad! Secondly, the Steam Deck is just powerful enough to run basically any fighting game you might want: Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Mortal Kombat 11, Guilty Gear Strive, Street Fighter X Tekken, Injustice 2, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, and so on!

Thanks to Steam Deck’s base resolution (a bit higher than 720p) and cutting-edge integrated graphics, you’ll be able to reach that oh-so-important 60 FPS mark more often than not — even when there’s a lot of action on screen!

And, better yet, because the Steam Deck is basically a portable little gaming PC, you’ll be able to connect multiple game controllers via Bluetooth and turn it into a spectacular little console for any kind of LAN set-up!

Esports Titles Galore

Certain esports/F2P titles like Overwatch, Rocket League, Paladins, Fortnite, PUBG, Dauntless, Smite, and so many others will run without a hitch! Moreover, most of them already have built-in controller support, so it’ll truly be a plug-and-play kind of thing!

These games already run fairly well on previous generation Vega iGPUs, but with RNDA 2’s rumored ~50% FPS uplift, you’ll be able to reach previously unfathomable levels of performance which should, by all means, end up making a world of difference!