Table of Contents
The Steam Deck is a modern feat of engineering, cramming an entire gaming PC into a portable handheld device and enabling you to play the best Steam Deck games anywhere in the world.
While it was soon joined by the likes of the Lenovo Legion Go (£509.99, Amazon.co.uk) and the cloud-based Logitech G Cloud (£299.99, Amazon.co.uk), the Steam Deck holds a special place in the hearts of PC gamers, for whom Valve stands apart as one of the industry’s leading developers.
Being able to play your PC games on the sofa (rather than having to sequester yourself away from your family in another room) unlocked a new way to play. While the Steam Deck is a relatively powerful device, matching a mid-range gaming PC in terms of performance, some games are better suited to the device than others.
In particular, the best Steam Deck games tend to be those developed with console controls in mind. The device is also well-suited to less graphically demanding games, as fancier-looking games can easily drain the battery in less than an hour. That makes it especially ideal for quick, pick-up-and-play titles such as Hades and Dave the Diver.
Below, we’ve rounded up the best games to play on Steam Deck. If you’ve recently picked up Valve’s console, or the new Steam Deck OLED (was £639.99, now £504, Amazon.co.uk), these are the games you should have installed and ready to go.
How we tested the best Steam Deck games
We’ve been using the Steam Deck since the console launched in 2022. You can read our full Steam Deck review for more information about the device. We’ve tested hundreds of games on Valve’s portable handheld, from those that are officially verified to work on the hardware to ones that are unverified or not officially supported.
Games were tested on the Steam Deck itself, as well as over local wifi using Steam’s remote play feature, which lets you stream games wirelessly from a gaming PC at home.
