If you are comfortable tinkering a bit, I’d recommend checking out the Decky loader This tool adds the ability to get a lot of different plugins for your steam deck, from changing the home theme, to editing fan controls. There are a lot of tools here.

If you want to emulate, emudeck is another great tool. It’ll set up a bunch of stuff for you and download emulators and set them up with good configurations for steam deck. I also believe if you do this, it will set up decky loader for you (don’t quote me on that, it’s been a while since I set it up)

For epic game store games, id recommend checking out Heroic launcher. It’s an open source launcher that connects to gog and epic games accounts and lets you download and play games you own on those stores. Another option is The non steam launcher tool on GitHub. This allows downloading a bunch of various launchers, including epic.

As for Xbox game pass, the situation is less ideal. If you have gamepass ultimate, you can utilize Xbox cloud gaming to play your gamepass games. This article is by Microsoft to set up cloud gaming on your deck. If you want to play then natively, you’ll need to dual boot your steam deck to have a windows partition. I have personally never done this, but I have friends who have, and it works well for them.

Don’t get it wet. And don’t feed it after midnight.

Some tips.

• Always do your research about a game, always check what people are saying on the website ProtonDB before you buy it. Do not trust the rating system. We’ve had too many cases of game being labeled as verified that couldn’t even reach 30 FPS.

• Do not install Windows on it. Just don’t. You got a Steam Deck. Not a Ayaneo, not a ROG ALLY. You got a Steam Deck. The strength of this machine is entirely in its software. It’s why in my opinion there has never been any real competition to the Steam Deck as most of these rely on Windows which is awful and not made for this purpose at all.

• If you ever get a dock and plug it in your TV, do not change the resolution of the game. Let it run at 720p. The upscaler will do its job. Just turn on FSR in the Steam Deck setting for the game with the free dots button (or Xbox + B, if you are using an Xbox Controller). In my experience, you tend to get quite good results, and I’m doing it on a 4K TV.

• The case that the Deck that comes with is amazing, but it’s a bit fat. It may be an issue if you plan on taking it with you on trips or whatever. So here’s a good alternative made by the company TomToc. I have one, and I love it. It’s thinner and will fit into more backpacks while taking less space. However, know that if you’re using a case around your Steam Deck, like let’s say you got a Killswitch from Dbrand, it won’t fit. Also, if you pick this up, don’t throw the original carrying case away. Keep it, you never know.

• I never really cared for emulation in the past. However, EmuDeck is the shit. It is so good, so stupidly easy to set up. You can’t pass on it. It’s a must have. If you grew up on consoles, it’s a great way to revisit the past and also a great way to play older games which got stuck on their consoles generation, forever lost to time and eBay scalpers.

Some games.

As for good games to get you started on the Steam Deck, first:

• Aperture Desk Job is an absoute must. I am pretty sure it should be included with the Steam Deck, but I don’t remember if it was, but it’s a free, short, and unique game made by Valve specifically for this machine. It will show you everything this machine can do and familiarize yourself with every aspect of controls from the small trackpads to the gyro controls.

• If you want good examples of good optimization, I strongly recommend you get the Spider-Man game by Insomniac. I will also strongly recommend you to buy its “sequel” (it’s more of an expansion standalone game), Miles Morales, which to me, while shorter, improves on basically every aspect of the base game.

• The Steam Deck is also perfect for playing older games which you may have never got around the playing. I played BioShock on it for the first time this year entirely on the Steam Deck from beginning to end. It can feel a bit dated here and there, but I can also tell you that its reputation is well earned.

• Speaking of all the games you’d never played before, I doubt you haven’t played them. For some reason I feel like you probably did, but if you haven’t, I strongly recommend you to play the entirety of the Half-Life 2 Trilogy on this thing. It’s been optimized for it with new menus and everything.

• A Short Hike is as short as it sounds like, but it is a really memorable title. It’s relaxing, it’s hilarious and it’s simply adorable. It’s a gem.

• Terraria may not look like it at first, but it is surprisingly well optimized for the Steam Deck. It’s amazing, and if you haven’t played it, you will probably figure out eventually why this game has such a cult following. There are really good reasons as to why this is one of the highest-rated games on Steam.

• Vampire Survivor. Because of course. I feel like at this point, it’s practically illegal to own a Steam Deck and not have this game on it.

• Reventure is a fun and creative title. I honestly don’t have much to say about it. It’s really fun, really creative, really cheap. Quite funny. I loved it, and I can only recommend it. Don’t try and look up guides for this game. That would be ruining the fun.

• I haven’t finished it. But Spiritfarer It is a beautiful game, not only visually, but in its theme too. It’s a game about death and moving on from past traumas. It’s emotional, it’s funny, it’s creative, it’s just full of heart. I can promise that you will get attached to every character, but I can guarantee you that you will get attached to some, and that you will promise yourself that you won’t cry, but you fucking will! And you will love it.

• There is nothing quite like The Long Dark. You may believe you played survival games before, but this one is entirely different. I cannot recommend this enough. You really have to play it to get it. In a sea of bad and generic survival games, this one stands out as being serene to the point of being therapeutic while also being able to be ruthless and terrifying. This game isn’t particularly hard to run, but however, it doesn’t seem to like the Steam Deck very much? The frame rate is oddly unstable so I would recommend you to lock it at 30, then it won’t move at all it will be perfectly locked. It’s an issue that needs fixing.

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I will conclude with this, the Steam Deck is not your PC with a 4090 in it. This is a low powered handheld machine. If I were you, I wouldn’t expect it to be reliable when it comes to newer AAA games. And that’s not only due to the power these game demands, but also to the absolutely dog shit optimization we seem to get with them nowadays.

I found that the Steam Deck is a perfect machine for me to expand my horizons. So my final recommendation would be for you to look towards indie games in general. These will be the best for the Steam Deck, but you may also find that these will be the best in general.

Have fun! :3

Just because a game says it won’t work on Deck doesn’t mean it is true. They just haven’t tested thousands of games to verify compatibility. Sometimes it is as easy as getting and selecting a very specific Proton version, but other more involved fixes may be necessary. When in doubt, search “[game] + Steam Deck” to see if someone else has tried and succeeded (or failed).

For Epic Games, I’d also recommend Heroic. You can download it from the Discover Software Center in Desktop Mode.

Some quick tips:

• If you need to bring up a keyboard for whatever reason, you can hold the STEAM button, and press X.
• Expect to tinker and play around with things, I think the software is still a bit new and rough around the edges.
• Search the Discover Software Center for software in general; it’s a good place to download things like browsers and applications.
• If you want to know if a game runs or not, you can check https://www.protondb.com , it’s a crowdsourced version of Valve’s “Steam Deck Verified”, where people say how well games work.

Some game recommendations, based on ones I’ve played. Not had a chance to try them all on the Steam deck, but they should work:

• Stardew Valley
• Baba is You
• Celeste
• Cuphead
• Dicey Dungeons
• Slay the Spire (Think you have to use the touch screen though)
• Sonic Mania
• Wargroove
• Zeepkist
• The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
• Hades
• Pizza Tower
• Tunic
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Demon’s Tilt

Check out protondb.com/ to see how compatible a game is with the deck (and Linux in general). The comments will usually have suggestions for getting the game to run well.

For Steam in general: If you are not in a major hurry to get a game wait for sales. There are major sales a few times a year and smaller ones all the time. Add games to your Steam wishlist to get notified when it’s on sale. Check steamdb for price trends.

Good recommendations so I’ll just add some specifics.

For whatever emulation route you choose, I recommend using a separate SD card just for emulation. Makes it really easy to just get it set up on an SD card, the games appear and they are ready. No SD card, no emulation finagling. Keeps your ROMs off main deck storage which even 512gb fills up fast.

I like emudeck, some don’t, ymmv.

I don’t think I saw SSH recommended. I use FileZilla to transfer files between my PC and steam deck - handy for emulation files, small-medium sized games. It makes the process of transferring and setup so much easier. I like FZ cause once it’s set up there’s a quick connect so you don’t have to remember the details.

Hardware accessory: I highly recommend the Deckmate, it’s basically a VESA mount for the Deck. I attached a battery pack, mini dock, and have mounted the Deck to VESA stands. Seriously, it’s worth it.

Install all the emulators you can. Learn how to emulate. It’s so much fun to play older games that you might’ve missed out on in the past.

Enable SSH access (but make sure it only accepts key-based logins - password based on a mobile device that might operate in untrusted networks is a bad idea).

If you enable SSH, you can transfer files from the PC over WLAN. (If you are on Windows: FileZilla is your friend.) Also, you can remote access the Steam Deck command line via SSH. (If you are on Windows: PuTTY is your friend.) That’s way less annoying than having to type longer texts (think: script files to launch emulators) with the on-screen keyboard.

Oh, and if you are into Retro Gaming, my small guide on how to add DOS games to the steam library and get MIDI working for them might be worth a look.

A few tips I haven’t seen anyone bring up yet:

– If you see a game on sale, it will be on sale again. Don’t get baited into buying something you won’t actually play for years.

– Please oh please learn to use the Deck’s quick menu performance options. When people complain about the Deck’s battery life, what they forget is that unlike a Nintendo Switch, it’ll just treat everything like it’s “docked” unless you tell it otherwise. It’ll munch through that battery as quick as you let it, so extending it is your responsibility. The easiest way to do that is to just set a power limit (even the max of 15 watts will help) if a game is running fine. A lot of basic 2d games get by just fine on 3 or 5. Half-rate shading is the other major option. Basically it’ll render some things at half of their normal resolution, sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it isn’t noticable on the Deck’s screen. With 3D stuff, get the performance overlay up and start dropping the the wattage if the framerate is high enough, or the game’s video settings if it’s not. Ideally just drop both, that’s how you’ll really save the battery. I just drop a lot of games right to “low” settings unless it looks really awful and go from there.

– In a similar vein, framerate limits!! Console games are nearly always locked to 30 or 60 frames per second for all sorts of reasons. In the Deck’s case you’re again thinking about battery life. While you can sometimes argue for framerates higher than a screen’s refresh rate, on the Deck it’s not really justifiable, there’s no good reason to pass 60. Some games play just fine at 30 so lock it to 30 if you can tolerate it. Or, the Deck’s secret weapon… 40fps. Normally you’d never do that, because it doesn’t line up with the screen and things get weird, but the Deck’s screen can actually just drop to 40hz to compensate. Due to some odd math 40fps is actually much closer to 60 than 30 in practice while still saving a lot of battery life.
BUT… BUT BUT BUT, the Deck’s system-wide framerate limiter has problems. Input lag problems. Hopefully you don’t notice and don’t give a shit but if you do, oh god, so much input lag. Thankfully the vast majority of games have their own 60fps locks that don’t have this problem (to the same extent) but for the 40hz thing you need to just deal with it.

I’m going to make a recommendation for pretty much all the metroidvanias, the deck was practically built for them. The Castlevania Advance collection has three great old games, including Aria of Sorrow, which was the progenitor of Bloodstained (which might honestly have a little too much going on - if you feel like you’d enjoy a simplified version of that, Aria is your game.)

But also do remember to pick up Hollow Knight. And Blasphemous. And if you’re emulating, Metroid fusion, Zero Mission, Metroid prime even, if you feel like frigging around with the GC emus.

Also, Soulslike games play particularly well on deck. I can get a pretty stable 30 out of Elden Ring, I’m sure the older titles work pretty well too.