15 Best Games To Play On The Steam Deck (2024)

The Steam Deck marks Valve's attempt to tap into the growing handheld gaming market. As far as first forays go, the 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 it can run.

With its promise of allowing you to carry your entire Steam library wherever you go, it's natural to wonder which games look and run the best on the handheld. This is why Valve maintains an ever-growing list of titles optimized for the Steam Deck. Out of all those games, these are the greatest.

Updated on June 1, 2024, by PJ Molloy: Having a Steam Deck has many benefits, including playing your favorite PC games while traveling, on a lunch break, or cuddling up in bed. We've added some new recommendations that are ideal for each scenario.

15 Hollow Knight

A Stunningly Macabre Metroidvania

The Steam Deck is perfect for long car rides or plane trips, and Hollow Knight is an excellent platformer to take with you. This hauntingly beautiful Metroidvania places you in the eerie, post-apocalyptic world of Hallownest, where you must take down massive bosses, hunt for secrets, and explore several non-linear locations.

The hand-drawn visuals look stunning on the Steam Deck's screen, and the game runs like a dream. With dozens of hours of content and endless replayability, Hollow Knight will keep you thoroughly entertained during prolonged travels.

14 Crow Country

A Love Letter To Classic Survival Horror Games

You don't have to break the bank for Steam Deck-compatible games. Crow Country is the best horror game on the handheld for under $20, making it perfect if you're buying a Steam Deck as a more affordable alternative to a gaming desktop.

The plot follows investigator Mara Forest, who explores an abandoned theme park in search of its missing owner. The gameplay and visuals pay tribute to classic survival horror titles like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, with quality-of-life updates that improve the puzzles, resource management, and third-person shooter combat.

13 Baba Is You

An Innovative Puzzler That Lets You Decide The Rules

If you need something to play in short bursts during lunch breaks or bus rides, Baba Is You has your back. It's a unique puzzle game that involves changing the rules of each level to solve brain teasers.

Each rule is represented as a block, which you can move to create new rules. For instance, changing "Baba Is You" to "Wall Is You" means you now control the wall. Every stage provides a short yet clever puzzle, making it ideal for quick pick-up-and-play sessions when you're out and about.

12 Coffee Talk

A Cozy Fantasy Visual Novel

One of the best perks of the Steam Deck is playing games while curled up in bed, and Coffee Talk is the coziest game to snuggle with. In this fantasy visual novel, you run a late-night cafe where mythological creatures come to unwind and share their stories.

Every character has a touching and relatable journey to listen to while you develop new recipes and design latte art. With the Steam Deck in hand, it feels like reading an immersive slice-of-life book. There's no better way to experience this charming title.

11 Cyberpunk 2077

A Gorgeous Sci-fi Action RPG

Cyberpunk 2077 saw a well-deserved second resurgence after an iffy launch. This open-world action RPG is absolutely breathtaking, and you'd probably expect that its beauty 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. Sadly, the loss in frame rate is definitely apparent. Still, the game is gorgeous enough to look quite palatable on the Steam Deck.

10 Marvel's Spider-Man

The Best Spider-Man Game On Steam

Marvel's Spider-Man is one of the many PlayStation exclusives that have made its way to PC. This is the best Spider-Man game out there and a perfect candidate for the Steam Deck.

You can easily go through the game in bite-sized chunks. 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

An Iconic Indie Roguelike

Hades is one of the most successful titles developed by Supergiant Games. This iconic roguelike brilliantly combines story and gameplay, making Hades great regardless of your platform. Helping Zagreus meet his mother and repeatedly defy his father makes for a 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.

8 Days Gone

Can You Survive The Apocalypse?

Initially launched in 2019, Days Gone places you in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested open world where you must use stealth and various weapons to survive an onslaught of monsters called Freakers.

While the PS4 version saw a lukewarm reception, the Steam port was better-received thanks to its numerous improvements. These include higher-resolution textures and an unlocked frame rate, which work together to improve the game's graphical fidelity beyond what was possible on the base PS4. You can expect a similar experience on the Steam Deck.

7 Metro Exodus

An Exhilarating FPS

The Metro games have always been performance-heavy, pushing gaming devices to their limits while delivering stellar visuals. Seeing one run on a portable machine as well as Metro Exodus does on the Steam Deck is almost akin to magic.

The game combines first-person shooter combat with semi-open-world exploration and linear missions. It runs surprisingly smoothly while looking just as impressive as on a top-of-the-line PC. 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

A Great Way To Play An Action-Packed Shooter

Doom Eternal encourages you to steamroll your way through enemies as fast as possible, meaning that any drops in performance will be acutely felt the moment they occur. This might cause you to think that the Steam Deck isn't up to the mark when running an FPS where a single misstep can lead to the Doom Slayer's painful demise.

Thankfully, the game manages to keep a 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 demons in one of the best shooters on the handheld without disturbance.

The Best Portable Game In The Series

The Metal Gear series has dabbled in portable gaming in the past, but none look as good as Metal Gear Solid 5 does on a Steam Deck.

The impressive vistas of its Soviet-controlled Afghanistan remain vibrant on the handheld gaming PC, and its rich sandbox provides multiple ways to tackle objectives. Kojima might've been booted out of Konami before finishing his work on the game. However, Metal Gear Solid 5 is still an incredible experience that fans of stealth-action games should definitely check out.

4 Batman: Arkham City

Take The Dark Knight Wherever You Go

Batman: Arkham City stands out as the best of the three Arkham games developed by Rocksteady. This is mainly due to its fully realized open world, where you are free to do what it takes to clean up Gotham's streets over one night.

The graphics continue to impress, especially seeing it run on the smaller screen of a Steam Deck, which helps maintain the film look the developers had been going for. Arkham Knight might be the benchmark for Rocksteady's stunning visual prowess, but its predecessor still holds up well.

3 God Of War

A Thrilling Adventure Through Norse Mythology

Sony didn't exactly phone it in with its PC port of God of War, so the fact that the game runs well on the Steam Deck is a testament to the handheld's power. Based on Norse and Greek mythology, the adventure follows Kratos, who must hack and slash his way through ferocious monsters and mighty gods.

The realm of Midgard looks just as stunning as it does on a high-end PC, and performance isn't too far behind either. Consider downloading it if you fancy going toe-to-toe with Norse gods across a lengthy adventure.

2 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Best Way To Play This Iconic RPG On The Go

Even though The Witcher 3 can be played portably on Nintendo Switch, you're much better off experiencing it on the Steam Deck. The performance matches, and sometimes exceeds, that of the PS4 Pro, making it the best way to take this legendary action RPG on the go.

Based on the fantasy novels of the same name, The Witcher 3 follows Geralt of Rivia, who is on a journey to save his daughter from the vicious Wild Hunt. With plenty of side quests and a plot that changes based on your actions, The Witcher 3 is an excellent way to spend long car rides or flights.

1 Elden Ring

A Legendary Open-World RPG

Famous for its open-world RPG gameplay and lore developed by Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin, Elden Ring is arguably the biggest and most graphically demanding game on the Steam Deck. Still, it didn't take Valve long to get it running on the handheld.

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. With hundreds of hours of content and an immersive fantasy world to explore, Elden Ring is a must-play RPG on the Steam Deck.