One Week with the Steam Deck

I hesitated 1 day to pre-order the Steam Deck when they announced it and as a result I only received it a week ago, and instead of writing a review of the Steam Deck, of which there are many floating around, I decided to write a little about my experience with it the first week I got my grubby mitts on it.

I ordered the 512 gb version with the anti-glare etched glass, which makes it playable in almost direct sunlight (at maximum brightness). Very thankful for that when playing on the go. I can imagine it being nigh unplayable in daylight without that glass. I do not have a direct comparison but if the lower tier Decks are anything like the Nintendo switch it would be.

The Steam Deck has a compatibility program for each game that goes as follows: Verified, the game is fully functional on Steam Deck and works great with the built-in controls and display. Playable, the game is functional on Steam Deck but might require extra effort to interact with or configure. Unsupported, some or all of this game currently doesn’t function on Steam Deck. Unknown, just like the rating says, it is unknown.

The first day I got the Deck it took me an evening to update it and install some games and by the time it was ready to play it was already too late. The next day I booted up Elden ring, a verified game and it ran without any problem. The graphics were crisp and the controls slick. It was a great feeling being able to play one of my favourite games anywhere and after some fiddling with the graphics I got it running at 60 frames per second with almost no noticeable difference in graphic fidelity. When the screen is this small you do not notice much difference on low, medium and high graphic settings outside of the frame rate. After that I started experimenting with all kinds of games to see how well it ran and how comfortable it would be to play.

Next up was Cities Skylines, a game that is rated playable and not verified. Graphically it ran very well but I did need to adjust the keybindings to get it to work and using one of the trackpads as a mouse. The trackpad worked surprisingly well, much better than most laptops I’ve tried over the years and once I had mapped all the keyboard functions I am used to use when playing Cities on the PC it was a very enjoyable experience. The city builder sims are a very good possibility on the Steam Deck and I am looking forward to many hours playing these kinds of games on my Deck.

I then tried Old World, an Unknown rated game. By using the standard mouse control settings on the Steam Deck it controlled nearly perfectly. I did need to make some minor adjustments to the keybinds since not every game uses the same buttons but again the experience was quite enjoyable. So far so good.

Time to find something old and mouse and keyboard heavy. I found 2 games that fit that description. First up was a point and click classic, Beneath a Steel Sky and to my surprise it was rated playable and with minor fiddling I could get it to a satisfactory control scheme. On to the next one and this time it was one of my all time favourite games, Fallout and again it was just a question of adjusting the keybinds to something that I could be comfortable with since it was also rated playable.

After all my testing I only experienced 3 crashes. 1 crash while playing Between the Stars, a game still in early access and just recently gotten Steam Deck support. It was a hard crash that crashed the whole Deck but after a reset and some fiddling with the graphics it has been running smoothly so far. The other 2 crashes were just a game crash and not a Deck crash. Those happened while playing Red Dead Redemption 2, another playable rated game. I found out that if you play the game in fullscreen mode it will crash sometimes but after putting it on borderless windowed I’ve been able to play it without crashing.

Anyway enough of compatibility and crashes let’s talk battery life. Battery life depends solely on the graphic settings and refresh rate of the screen. Playing heavily graphic dependent games like Red Dead Redemption 2 or GTA5 will limit you to only 2 hours of play time on a full charge but if you lower the settings and limit the processor clock and refresh rate you can get an extra hour or two out of it but it all depends on what you are willing to settle for. I personally have RDR2 on the lowest settings with medium textures and I get just over 3 hours of play time with a full charge and so far it is enough for me as I usually get to an electric socket before the battery charge is depleted. Though graphics do not seem to be the sole deciding factor to the battery life as I also tried a relatively new game on the PC, Monster Hunter Rise. I played MHR on highest settings and got 60 frames per second and nearly 4 hour play time on a full charge. Maybe because MHR was first a Nintendo Switch exclusive and made for that hardware it is not as resource heavy as RDR2 but I am not sure and have not looked much into that. Now playing something like Dead Cells or other 2D pixel games you can get nearly 8 hours play time out of the Deck which is more than enough for anyone I’d say. One feature I was curious about was what would happen when I would put the Deck to sleep while playing a game if it would resume from exactly where I was playing like the Nintendo Switch and I can happily say that it does. I was playing RDR2 and decided to suspend my Deck. I returned a few hours later and unsuspended it, the gaming resumed like I had just paused the game and returned later though I do have to say that the battery had drained a bit more than when doing it on the Switch.

After reading a few reviews I was afraid the Steam Deck would be uncomfortably large and cumbersome, and that the button configurations would cause discomfort but I am happy to say the Deck is about the same size as a Nintendo Switch with a pro controller joy con attachment and that the buttons, D-pad, analogue sticks and the trackpads are all situated quite comfortably for someone of my stature but I could see someone with small hands might have some issues with them or even consider them uncomfortable for a long period of time. The ergonomics of the Deck seem to be very well thought out as it nestles well in my hands and I could play for hours on end without noticing any kind of fatigue in my hands, unlike the Nintendo Switch with the standard joy-cons.

The Deck was very playable anywhere I could think of. I played in a car, while laying down, sitting and even while walking. I never noticed it’s weight or any kind of discomfort while playing in any of these settings.

All in all it has been a very enjoyable week with the Steam Deck and would highly recommend it to anyone that wants to play most of their Steam library on the go, but keep in mind this is no replacement for a proper gaming rig but a great compliment to one with the Steam Deck cloud save function that lets you continue the game on your main gaming rig. The games I tested in the first week are as follows:

Alien Breed playable The Banner saga verified Beneath a Steel Sky playable Between Stars playable Beyond Good and Evil playable Chrono Trigger playable Dead Cells verified Deponia complete journey unknown Disjunction playable Dyson Sphere Program playable Elden Ring verified Fallout playable Generation Zero verified Inscryption playable King’s Quest playable Metro Exodus playable Monster Hunter Rise unknown Red Dead Redemption 2 playable Rogue Legacy 2 verified Sekiro verified Teardown playable Tokyo 42 playable Victor Vran verified Guijin 3 Playable Endless Space 2 playable Unsouled unknown Old World unknown Cities Skylines playable