The Steam Deck marks Valve's attempt to tap into the growing handheld gaming PC market. And as far as first forays go, its latest device packs quite the punch for its relatively small form factor. But a gaming PC is only ever as great as the crop of games that can run on it.
So with its promise of allowing you to carry your entire Steam library with you wherever you go, most players would like to know what games look and run the best on the handheld. This is why Valve itself maintains an ever-growing list of titles that have been optimized for the Steam Deck. Out of all those games, here are the ones we consider essential.
Updated on October 30, 2022, by Ritwik Mitra: The Steam Deck is easily one of the best innovations to have come out from Valve in quite some time. This console uses the Nintendo Switch's innovative design for a portable system that lets you access a wealth of Steam games. Of course, it's only a given that the hardware of the Steam Deck is going to take a huge hit, but the following games have done a great job of accommodating this deficit.
11 Cyberpunk 2077
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Cyberpunk 2077 is currently enjoying a well-deserved second resurgence. This open-world action-RPG title is absolutely breathtaking, and you'd probably expect that the beauty of this game is wasted on the Steam Deck.
However, the novelty of playing Cyberpunk 2077 on a portable screen more than makes up for this deficit. The fact that CD Projekt Red has included a preset for the Steam Deck shows that it's more than playable on portable hardware. The loss in framerate in graphical fidelity is definitely apparent, but the game is gorgeous enough to look quite palatable on the Steam Deck despite these issues.
10 Marvel's Spider-Man
Marvel's Spider-Man is one of the many PlayStation exclusives to make its way to PC. This is the best Spider-Man game out there, making it a perfect candidate for the Steam Deck.
You can easily go through the game in bite-sized chunks by playing it on the Steam Deck. Swinging around New York City and completing challenges is a blast, with the portability of this title elevating the experience. You might need to play for more extended sessions during main story missions, but that's almost a non-issue, given the incredible narrative of this title.
9 Hades
Hades is one of the most successful titles developed by Supergiant Games. This roguelike action game weaves story and gameplay together brilliantly, making Hades great regardless of the platform you play on. Helping Zagreus meet his mother and defy his father time and time again makes for a pretty compelling gameplay loop. It helps that every character in this title is oozing with charm and personality.
You'll need to be adept with the Steam Deck control scheme to get through Hades' challenging combat. The title is extremely rewarding, with every successful run being a treat that fans savor.
8 Days Gone
Even though it had initially been slapped with some lukewarm reviews at the time of its release on the PS4, Days Gone has experienced a resurgence of interest since its PC version shipped with a number of PC-specific enhancements last year.
These include higher-resolution textures and an unlocked frame rate, which work together to improve its graphical fidelity beyond what was possible on the base PS4. You can expect a similar experience on the Steam Deck, with plenty of options to tinker with to further fine-tune the game should you so desire.
7 Metro Exodus
The Metro games have always been notoriously performance-heavy, pushing gaming devices to their limits while delivering stellar visuals. So seeing one run on a portable machine as well as Metro Exodus does on the Steam Deck is almost akin to magic.
The latest game runs surprisingly smoothly while still managing to look just as impressive as it does on a top-of-the-line PC. And while thumbsticks and buttons will never replace a good mouse and keyboard, the controls on the Steam Deck do a more than admirable job.
6 Doom Eternal
Doom Eternal encourages you to steamroll your way through enemies as fast as you can, meaning that any drops in performance will be acutely felt the moment they occur. This might cause many people to think that the Steam Deck isn't up to the mark when it comes to running an FPS where a single misstep can lead to the Doom Slayer's painful demise.
Thankfully, the game manages to keep a silky smooth, steady frame rate on the Steam Deck without any noticeable sacrifices to the quality of the visuals. As a result, you'll be ripping through those demons without having to worry about severe frame drops.
5 Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
The Metal Gear series has dabbled into the world of portable gaming in the past, with several releases on the PSP. But none of those games looked as good as Metal Gear Solid 5 does running on a Steam Deck.
The impressive vistas of its Soviet-controlled Afghanistan remain vibrant on the handheld gaming PC as its rich sandbox provides multiple ways for you to tackle objectives, all of which make the game a solid addition to any Steam Deck library. Kojima might've been booted out of Konami before finishing his work on the game, but Metal Gear Solid 5 is still an incredible experience that fans of stealth-action games should definitely check out.
4 Batman: Arkham City
Of the three Batman: Arkham games developed by Rocksteady, Batman: Arkham City remains a favorite among fans. This is mainly down to its fully-realized open world where you are free to do what it takes to clean up the streets of Gotham over the course of one night.
The graphics in the game continue to look impressive, especially seeing it run on the smaller screen of a Steam Deck, which helps maintain the film look the developers had been going for when it was released in 2011. Arkham Knight might be the benchmark for Rocksteady's stunning visual prowess, but its predecessor still holds up well even now.
3 God Of War
Sony didn't exactly phone it in with its PC port of God of War, so the fact that the game runs as well as it does on the Steam Deck is a testament to the handheld PC's power.
The realm of Midgard looks just as stunning as it does running on a high-end PC, and performance isn't too far behind either. So if you fancy going toe-to-toe with some Norse gods across a meaty adventure that should last you quite a number of hours, then you should definitely consider downloading this one off Steam.
2 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witcher 3 is another game you'll want to carry on your Steam Deck. Because even though it can already be played portably on a Nintendo Switch, it does so with a number of glaring compromises to its visual fidelity.
That is not the case on Steam Deck, however, as the game can match and even exceed the performance of consoles like the PS4 Pro. So whether or not you've played through its story before, you'll want to give it a spin just to see what the Steam Deck is capable of.
1 Elden Ring
The PC version of Elden Ring launched in a relatively rough state, with frame rate issues and other performance-related hiccups. Still, it hadn't taken the team at Valve very long to get it running at an acceptable standard on their machine.
You can expect performance slightly above what you would get on a base PS4 and none of the shader compilation issues that plague the PC version, thanks to some smart optimization on the part of Valve, making it one of the best showcases for their hardware.