And it’s just as tense, inventive and witty on the Steam Deck: it runs at a perfect 60fps, and only needs the face buttons and a single thumbstick for its slick, combo-happy combat. Hades claimed, by Advent Calendar rules, RPS GOTY status back in 2020. It doesn’t suck (hahhhhhh) the battery too quickly either: although I haven’t done a full full-to-empty test yet, I’d say you can expect four to five hours of surviving vampires before the Deck runs dry. It only really needs the left thumbstick and an occasional face button for inputs, and the framerate keeps above 40fps even with the most overwhelming of monster crowds, so chalk Vampire Survivors up as another Steam Deck special. Simply moving around and auto-attacking sounds like a dreadfully dull premise but as the XP-unlocked weapon upgrades stack up, and the initial trickles of enemies become screen-filling bullet hell hordes, holding back the tide with time-stopping lasers and weaponised Bibles becomes almost hypnotically compelling. It’s a clever, surprising, and unrelentingly charming introduction to your new gadget, not a mention a reminder that Valve should really make more games.Īt the suggestion of several RPS readers (and with the implicit recommendation of, apparently, scores of other Steam Deck owners), I finally got round to playing Vampire Survivors. It’s essentially a free Steam Deck tutorial, designed to help you get used to the controls layout, but is entertainingly administered through a genuinely funny mini-jaunt through a pre-Portal Aperture Science. The short and sweet Aperture Desk Job isn’t just one of the best games to play on the Steam Deck – it should probably be the first one you try.

Oh, and I’ve added developer/publisher info and store links, based on feedback on our most anticipated games of 2023 feature. Should you want some inspiration on where to start, though, read on. Of course, if you’ve recently acquired a Steam Deck of your own, feel free to ignore all of this and just play the PC games you already own – that in itself is one reason why it’s such a neat device. But they are all games that I’ve found are particularly well suited to the Steam Deck life, be it through an ease of adapting to its onboard controls, high performance, or ideally both. With that in mind, I might stress that this is not an organised ranking of quality in the way that (for example) our best strategy games or best RPGs lists are.

Game pass on steam deck