I got my Steam Deck, and it’s a game changer
When Valve first officially announced the Steam Deck last year, after years of rumors, I was skeptical. I had tried out a Steam Machine back in 2018, as well as a Steam Controller, and neither had impressed me very much. Valve’s a brilliant developer and storefront manager, but they just can’t do hardware, I reasoned.
Still, never one to be able to avoid even the teensiest bit of hype, I got into the order queue for a Steam Deck this summer, and with Valve having finally caught up on production, mine was delivered just last week. It took less than two days of playing around on this miracle device to completely win me over.
If you haven’t heard all the buzz around the Steam Deck yet, think of it as a Nintendo Switch, but for your Steam library. It’s a rather beefy handheld device that launches directly into the Steam ecosystem when you turn it on. Using fairly traditional controls (two analog sticks, face buttons, shoulder buttons) plus Valve’s patented trackpads with tactile feedback to emulate mouse movement, you can play...well, not every game on Steam, but a lot of them.
As of August, Valve announced it had certified over five thousand games available on Steam as “Steam Deck Verified” or “Steam Deck Playable,” two tags that ensure a relatively solid experience when using the portable system. To be fair, five thousand is a fraction of the fifty thousand total games available on Steam, but still enough that most gamers will be able to find plenty of games they’re interested in that work on the shiny new hardware.
And as absurd as it might feel, I have to admit: I think I might prefer playing games on my Steam Deck to playing on my actual PC. I had a similar revelation with the Nintendo Switch when it first released, but it feels even more stark this time around, because so many PC games are all about presenting that hardcore, top-of-the-line experience. Being a PC gamer (for some anyway) is about playing the sorts of games that push the envelope and make your video card sweat as it revs up like a jet engine. Yet it’s impossible to ignore the joy of getting nice and cozy in bed or in a super comfortable chair and still being able to play the latest computer game sensation.
Maybe I’m just getting old and prefer not having to continue sitting at my computer for even more hours every day. Then again, here’s an absolutely silly picture of me enjoying The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow on Steam Deck...while sitting right in front of my computer monitor, with Steam open. Why didn’t I just play it on that nice big monitor? I couldn’t tell you. The Steam Deck just feels that good!
(As an aside, The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is fantastic, whether you’re playing on Steam Deck or not. Check out some more of my thoughts on it here.)
So having access to a big chunk of my Steam library when I’m on the go or not at my computer is fantastic. But in truth, that only just scratches the surface of what the Steam Deck offers. I didn’t understand until I got my hands on this device that it truly is just a mid-range computer crammed into a sleek, small body.
Case in point: desktop mode. By simply holding the power button once the system is turned on and then selecting “Switch to desktop” from the menu that pops up, you can enable the Steam Deck’s desktop mode, which is, as the name suggests, literally just a Linux operating system desktop. You can even connect a mouse and keyboard via bluetooth to make navigating easier.
Within desktop mode, you can install non-Steam games and dig through a number of user-created apps that greatly expand the hardware’s uses. For example, did you know that you can actually access your GOG.com and Epic Games libraries from the Steam Deck? No joke, and it’s even relatively easy (although some games, like Fortnite, will not work).
Or let’s say you’re subscribed to Microsoft’s popular Xbox Game Pass service, and you’d love to use those games on the Steam Deck? No problem! All you’ve got to do is download the Edge browser, perform a couple of technical steps, and log in to the Xbox website, and you can access all of the Xbox Game Pass titles to play via the cloud. Microsoft representatives have said they’re even working on a method to make this process easier for those who get a little nervous about entering commands into the Linux konsole.
For the truly dastardly in the audience, I’ve heard that there are even ways to get emulators and ROMs for older consoles running on the Steam Deck. You’ll have to look that up on your own though!
The best part is, with just a few simple steps, you can take any of these extra options and add them to your Steam library interface for quick and painless play at any time. Setting up the Xbox Game Pass stuff took me a little bit of time, for example, but now all I have to do is select “Microsoft Edge” in my library, and it launches right into the Xbox Game Pass streaming site.
I’m sure there are many discoveries I have yet to make about what the Steam Deck is capable of, but more than anything I’m just astounded at how seamless, user-friendly, and smooth it all is. This is a massive leap compared to all of the hardware Valve has created in the past, and in many ways it feels like a fantastic method of both opening up PC gaming to more people and expanding the horizons of longtime PC gamers like myself.
In less than a week, the Steam Deck has totally shifted how and when I play games. There aren’t many video game systems I can honestly say that about. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to curl up under a blanket and enjoy several more rounds of Vampire Survivors.
Mentioned games
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