The Steam Deck launched earlier this year with the intention of shaking up both the PC and handheld gaming spheres. While it'll never contend with Nintendo's massive Switch numbers, as that was hopefully never the goal, it's a great way to open up a huge library of games to those who might not otherwise have access to it. The console is still a work in progress, but the list of games people have been playing most on the Deck over the past month highlights the continued efforts of Valve and developers are helping it improve every day.
Tucked away in a lengthy post detailing a number of improvements made to the Deck is a list of the ten most-played games on the handheld console in the last month. Among them are Hades, Vampire Survivors, The Witcher 3, and Elden Ring, because three months after launch everyone is still playing it all of the time on whatever controller or console they can get their hands on.
It's pretty remarkable that any of those games, and so many others, are capable of running on a console that you can hold in the palm of your hand. Well, two hands. The Steam Deck might be handheld but it's still pretty bulky. It just goes to show how far handheld gaming has come in a relatively short space of time. The list of the most-played games on the Deck also highlights the aforementioned continued work of various teams to make as many games as possible playable on the console.
“The top ten titles of the last month are all Verified, but that's only because of work taking place across the industry,” the post reads. “Four of these ten titles used to be either Unsupported or Playable, and still would be without devs doing the work to improve the experience for Deck customers.” The difference between verified and playable is a key one. Verified means the game can run perfectly, whereas playable means it'll probably work, but there may well be issues.
The list of the Steam Deck's verified and playable games continues to grow and is now up to more than 3000. The post also details new features such as the ability to lock your screen using a passcode, and the option to remote play with others, even if those others don't own the game you want to play together.