The Best Steam Deck Games To Play Right Now

In a very brief time, the Steam Deck has become a staple of PC gaming as the go-to portable solution for many PC players, and its popularity has seemingly inspired more portable PC manufacturers to join the market. This is partly because the device comes from Valve, and who better to create a handheld Steam machine than the makers of Steam?

You can read our Steam Deck review to see what we thought of it, but more than likely, you're ready to dive in for yourself. As soon as you boot it up, you'll find your Steam library is intact, which is exciting, but not all games are created equal when it comes to playing them via Steam Deck. The Steam Deck also received a notable upgrade with the Steam Deck OLED, which features an upgraded screen, better battery life, and more. The older LCD screen models, meanwhile, have gotten a permanent price drop.

We've rounded up a few dozen of the best games to play on Steam Deck, including major AAA hits, under-the-radar indies, and everything in between. In most cases, these games have already been declared as "Deck Verified" by Valve, meaning it's fully supported without any caveats. Plus aside from just technical verification, some games just feel great in portable form, so we've taken that quality into account as well. And while the Steam Deck is great for PC tinkerers, for the purposes of this list we've stuck with games that run natively through the Steam interface without any special hoop-jumping. These are our best of the best recommendations for Steam Deck, and we regularly reevaluate and update. That means even now in 2024, you can reference this as a resource for finding great games.

If you do want to expand your horizons, though, you can also install Epic Games Store on Steam Deck to broaden your library even more. In most cases in our experience, these games work just as they would on your home PC, which is great when you consider how often Epic hands out free games on its platform. If you want to get the most out of your new toy, check out our list of the best Steam Deck accessories. As the list of Steam Deck-compatible games grows, so too will this list here. Keep checking back for recommendations on the best games to play on Steam Deck.

Editor's Note: Article updated on February 14, 2024.

Arcade Paradise starts out unassuming enough, as you go through the tedious work of managing an old laundromat. Soon you discover a few arcade machines sitting in storage in the back room and decide to open them up to the public. As you start to develop your business, you build up more and more cabinets, converting more of the laundromat to a burgeoning arcade business. While you need to manage your business, you can also play all of your own arcade machines to your heart's content. In effect, this makes Arcade Paradise a great minigame collection, letting you dabble in tons of different retro-styled games. And those play habits feed into the business management mechanics as well, as your performance in the arcade machines increases their popularity and profitability. The Steam Deck is a perfect fit, as you can while away the hours playing games or just check in for a day of managing your business while you're on the go.

Card Shark is an aptly named game that sees you slowly growing your repertoire of card tricks as you try to fool your opponents and grow your wealth. Things start out slow (learning how to trade signals with your partner), but quickly escalate (learning how to shuffle the deck in your favor). If you perform any of these actions poorly, your fellow players will start to grow leery of your intent. It’s an intriguing premise, and one that’s pulled together with beautiful graphics, impressive dialogue, and a soundtrack that’ll be stuck in your head long after you put down your Steam Deck.

Celeste is a challenging platformer with an emotional story to tell. It follows Madeline as she navigates her anxiety and depression--and it’s a story that’s arguably even more poignant today than it was in 2018. The narrative is best experienced without any spoilers, and it’s a journey that’s propelled to incredible heights thanks to its minimalistic graphics and a fluid movement system that works perfectly on Steam Deck. It only takes about eight hours to finish the journey, but completionists can stick around much longer if they want to uncover everything Celeste has to offer. It's a beautiful game that all platforming enthusiasts should play.

One of several great JRPG homages to come to PC since the release of Steam Deck, Chained Echoes uses a lovely pixel-art style to tell its story of a band of heroes in the middle of the war-torn Valandis. Its combat is inspired by the beloved classic Chrono Trigger, with a twist. An Overdrive meter has you carefully balance your attack and defense to stay in the sweet spot, or else you'll overheat and become much more vulnerable. Plus the standard on-foot combat is complemented by mech battles, giving another dimension to the combat.

I like to think of Children of Morta as an underappreciated gem in the dungeon-crawler genre. In it, you play as the pixelated Bergson family, each member of which has their own unique fighting style and weaponry. Clearing out damp and dark caves around your immaculate home is made more engrossing thanks to a fantastic narrator, carrying you off into a fantasy world on even the most tedious bus ride to work.

Part dungeon crawler, part simulator, Cult of the Lamb enlists you as the leader of a tribe of cultists as you try to gain the favor of a mystical being that saved you from death. Combat is fast and fluid, with levels randomly generated for replayability. There are also tons of ways to enhance your skills, giving you plenty of reasons to dive back in for another quest. When you’re not swinging swords or slinging spells, you’ll need to manage your cult in typical sim-game fashion. That means feeding your members, giving them jobs… and picking up their poop.

If you don’t mind going into fits of rage while riding the subway or sitting in a cab, consider adding Cursed to Golf to your Steam Deck lineup. This golf game is anything but leisurely, as it tasks you with navigating a 2D course filled with ridiculous hazards such as TNT and teleporters--although an assortment of useful power-ups gives you impressive flexibility to complete each stage under par. The goal is to clear all 18 holes in a single playthrough, but you can break your round up into multiple playthroughs to make things more manageable. Tight controls, adorable graphics, and an ever-changing assortment of levels make it easy to sink hours into the indie regardless of where you’re playing.

Don’t let its colorful, cartoon graphics fool you--Cuphead is a brutally difficult game. You play as the eponymous Cuphead as he battles a series of increasingly difficult enemies on his journey toward the Devil. Battles play out from a 2D perspective and take place in a single room, although each boss always manages to bring something new to the table. Beyond its striking graphics, Cuphead features some of the smoothest combat mechanics on this list, making it a blast to face off against each new villain (even if they destroy you just a few seconds later). Toss in a variety of unlockable weapons and abilities, multiple playable characters, and the stellar Delicious Last Course expansion, and it’s easy to see why Cuphead remains so popular more than five years after its release. It feels right at home on Steam Deck and is a must-play for anyone who likes challenging action games.

On the surface, Dave the Diver is a cute adventure sim game in which you go spear fishing during the day and then bring your catches in at night to serve as the menu for a burgeoning sushi restaurant. But like the Big Blue Hole that you're diving into, there's unexpected depth here. Dave the Diver ends up being a wild hodge-podge of tons of different genre influences, incorporating lots of different activities as it tells its lengthy story. Still, the loop of catching fish, serving sushi, and using your profits to upgrade your gear is so easy and compelling it's a perfect fit for the Deck. The lovable Dave is a fun, rotund hero, and the game is also home to some of the biggest and best pixel cutscenes we've ever seen.

Disco Elysium is so text-heavy that it can feel like you're actually holding a Kindle when playing it on a Steam Deck, but for fans of deep RPG experiences, it's exactly what you're probably looking for. The latitude for true role-playing is vast and the story goes places that are both smart and unpredictable. The painterly art style also looks great in handheld mode and may have fellow train passengers looking over to see what it is you're doing, which admittedly is a little awkward when you start the game hungover in your underpants.

A video game with a side of Eldritch horror, Dredge has you fishing the shores of Greater Marrow to reel in big catches, upgrade your boat, buy better supplies, and deal with panicked hallucinations. You know, normal fishing stuff! As the story unfolds you discover more about the horrific sea monsters that lurk below the surface, giving the whole thing a touch of lightly creeping spookiness.

After nearly two decades of development, Dwarf Fortress is available on Steam (and playable on Steam Deck). The elaborate simulation game tasks you with growing a small settlement of dwarves into a thriving metropolis. There’s a ridiculous level of depth to the game, as you’ll need to gather resources, craft new gear, engage in combat, build structures, and contend with a dynamic weather system that can impact your city. It’s not for the faint of heart, but Dwarf Fortress is an intricate game that should please anyone itching for a comprehensive sim.

Elden Ring’s The Lands Between are vast and rich with activities to undertake. At any given moment you're a stone’s throw away from a hidden dungeon, a brand new area of the map, or a challenging mini-boss. Although the game tells you to seek the shards of the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord, it's easy to spend dozens of hours doing other things instead. The Steam Deck is a fantastic way of undertaking some of these shorter tasks in bite-sized chunks, before returning to the main task at hand on a bigger screen with a beefier PC. Steam's ability to seamlessly upload and download cloud saves makes this functionality a breeze. But, if you're playing entirely on the Steam Deck alone, Elden Ring runs very well--no doubt because Valve took steps to ensure the biggest game of the year, which launched around the same time as its Steam Deck, actually worked. Elden Ring looks and plays excellent on the handheld, so you can hop into the Lands Between whenever is most convenient for you.

The classic Final Fantasy series has gotten lovingly restored with the Pixel Remaster, and these classic RPGs feel readymade for portable. Thanks to mods, Steam Deck the best place to play. Not only can you grind levels while binge-watching a show, but it looks and plays great, and you can even install mods to (for example) fix the font. If you can only get one, Final Fantasy 6 is an absolute masterpiece.

There's no shortage of Mega Man homages on Steam, but Gravity Circuit is one of the best for how it riffs on the concept and finds its own identity. This is definitely Mega Man inspired--the robot designs and story are very analogous to the Mega Man X series in particular--but it exchanges the long-range shooting of that classic series for close-up melee fighting. The result is the marriage of Mega Man and Shinobi we never knew we wanted, creating frantic fighting-like mechanics interspersed with white-knuckled platforming challenges.

Some games fit Steam Deck because their genre or gameplay elements just feel right at home in a handheld device. Others, Like God of War, are just proof of how powerful the Steam Deck is. God of War is a game that once seemed unlikely to ever come to PC, but not only is it available on the platform, it's fully verified and ready to go on Steam Deck.

Half-Life 2 being great on Steam Deck is basically a given, considering Valve’s long-term support for the 2004 game. Valve likes to use it and games like Portal as testing grounds and showcases for its new technology, and there are some Steam Deck bells and whistles that make the already fantastic, landmark first-person shooter shine on Deck. Gordon Freeman’s second adventure still looks and plays great more than 15 years later, but the default control setup also incorporates motion controls. Using Deck’s capacitive tech, simply laying your thumb on the right control stick activates the motion controls. Setting it up this way means you only use the motion when you are aiming (a bit like Breath of the Wild’s default controls) and it also allows you to play it like a standard controller FPS game without diving into menus if you so choose.

While you're at it check out Aperture Desk Job, a hilarious (and free) little tech demo made specifically for Steam Deck, and set in the shared Half-Life and Portal universe.

Vampire Survivors by way of Diablo, Halls of Torment takes the auto-shooter genre that has blown up recently and adds some of its own flavor. With different character classes and the ability to turn on manual aim, a round of Halls of Torment actually ends up feeling like an abbreviated game of Diablo 2. And like lots of roguelike survival shooters, you can bank for upgrades that will make your next run that much more successful.

Hitman 3 is the culmination of a half-decade of hard work from IO Interactive, and that's admirable. But also, on Steam Deck, it's a diverse world tour of portable murder playgrounds, and that's pretty neat too. If you happen to have access to the earlier games in the Hitman reboot series, this third game houses every level, weapon, and ridiculous costume into one central hub, giving Hitman fans the totality of the franchise's best entries all in the palms of their hands. Plus the addition of the roguelike Freelancer mode gives the entire World of Assassination trilogy a new lease on life.

Into the Breach is one of the best-designed games in recent memory, and it's perfectly at home on Deck, thanks to its turn-based nature and bite-sized missions. As the previous Switch release demonstrated, the controls work perfectly well with a gamepad, and the screen here is well up to the task of displaying all of the information you need. Performance is great (it's not terribly demanding from a hardware perspective), and it's a terrific game that you can sink hours into at a time or occasionally glance at while watching something on TV.

Few games scream "Valve!" more than Left 4 Dead 2, so it should be a no-brainer for the Steam Deck, and I'm happy to report that playing it on the handheld is actually even better than playing it on console. It runs very smooth and the PC lobbies have always stayed active even after the Xbox community largely fell by the wayside. The controls are simple too, so even if you've been playing for years on PC, you'll quickly intuit how to pick up an axe and start chopping off zombie limbs with friends on the go.

Developed by the same folks behind XCOM 2, Marvel's Midnight Suns is a tactical-RPG with a Marvel twist. You’ll play as a fully customizable hero (known as The Hunter), as you team up with big names like Doctor Strange and Spider-Man to take down Lilith and the elder god Chthon. Combat isn’t exactly like XCOM 2, however, as you’ll have access to a card system that grants you powerful abilities on the battlefield--along with a wide assortment of superpowers. Beyond combat, Midnight Suns lets you chat with your teammates at your secret base and unlock new skills that can help turn the tide in battle.

Monster Hunter Rise is another Switch game that eventually found a home on PC, making it well-suited for Steam Deck. The latest game in the franchise does quite a bit to move the series forward, with the Wirebug adding a new verticality to its maps and Rampage quests offering a chaotic break from your usual hunts. Beyond those changes, everything else that made Monster Hunter so popular is here in spades. Whether you enjoy heading out on hunts with a group of friends, meticulously crafting every piece of gear, or trying to slay beasts solo, Monster Hunter Rise is bound to impress.

Much like Slay the Spire, which clearly inspired it, Monster Train is a game well-suited to quick bursts of gameplay. Because it's already available on Xbox, it features controller support, so controlling it on Deck is easy. But just as importantly, the action is readable on the screen, and its turn-based nature lends itself to the type of portable/toilet gaming that Deck enables. However you play it, the gameplay remains some of the very best in the roguelike deckbuilder genre, giving you a great deal of freedom in how you assemble your deck and combine cards from different factions to make each run feel distinct.

Most of the JRPG homages are riffing on classics from Square Enix, so it only makes sense that Square would make one of the best ones itself. Octopath Traveler 2 is the sequel to its experimental first game featuring eight heroes with their own backstories, and that core idea is still intact here. But OT2 is a vast improvement in every way. The repetitive process of gathering all eight party members has been streamlined, and the roles and abilities are more differentiated. Characters also now have differing daytime and nighttime skills, as well as Latent Abilities to use in combat. It may be a little slow to get started, but when all the mechanics and systems come together, it sings.

The Metroidvania genre fits like a glove on Steam Deck, and among those, one of the absolute best is the Ori series. The two games as a duology remain an immaculate and tightly-designed genre standout, arguably the best of the past decade. Taking that on the go is already possible on Switch and even Xbox Cloud Gaming, so you've maybe had opportunities to play it in handheld mode before, but if you missed it until now, the Steam Deck is the best of those handhelds thanks to it not requiring an internet connection like Xbox and its larger, nicer screen than Switch.

The metroidvania genre is popular for a reason, but it plays especially well on handheld platforms where you can alternate between focusing your attention and idly exploring while catching up with a bake-off. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is no exception, and it's a great fit on Steam Deck for that reason. While it's not on Steam and therefore takes a little extra setup, it's worth the work.

And this is a particularly spectacular metroidvania. The combat is tight and responsive with an emphasis on counters and parries, and it uses an equipment system that lets you cater the action to your own play style. Exploration is vast and varied, thanks to a compelling world and white-knuckle platforming challenges. Every part of it harmonizes with the others, creating one of the best metroidvanias in recent years.

This anticipated sequel to the retro action game Rogue Legacy and it might just be the ideal use-case for Steam Deck. The rogue-lite action game has you once again battling through a castle as a cascading series of hiers, each with their own powers, making incremental progress all the way as you inherit new traits and buy permanent upgrades. The new 2D/3D hybrid art style looks fantastic on the Steam Deck screen, and it's the perfect type of easy-to-pick-up, hard-to-put-down experience that thrives on a handheld.

If Switch players get Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, at least Steam Deck users get to have Sable. This clearly BOTW-inspired open-world puzzler foregoes combat of any kind in favor of a chilled-out coming-of-age story set in a unique fantasy world full of quests, characters, and secrets. The open-ended game lets you see its credits in as little as three hours or as many as 20+. It's up to you to decide when your ride is over, be that when your flight ends or perhaps months down the line. The music is done entirely by Japanese Breakfast too, giving the entire game a meditative quality that is perfect for a long trip you may not otherwise be looking forward to.

This JRPG homage comes from an unexpected source. Sabotage Studio, the creator of the Ninja Gaiden throwback The Messenger, made its own take on classic SNES-era RPGs. Even more astounding is that the indie studio has now excelled at two completely different genres. Sea of Stars is technically a prequel to the Messenger, but its own Chrono Trigger-inspired combat is all its own. At the same time, Sabotage has introduced new ideas to streamline the classic formula, like the ability to stagger your enemies by hitting a certain combination of attack types. It also sports some of the most beautiful pixel art we've seen, so it's worth seeing.

While you do need an internet connection to play Sea of Thieves, it's still worthwhile to play when you aren't out and about. Past iterations of Rare's pirate sandbox have been less short session-friendly, but the team has taken strides to improve the game in that area, offering short and sweet daily challenges for all players and introducing new Sea Forts, which are meant to be challenged and won in as little as 15-20 minutes including the time it takes to sell all your loot. Sea of Thieves, like God of War listed earlier in this feature, is the kind of game that you once could only dream about playing on a handheld. But today the future has arrived by boat.

Like God of War, Spider-Man Remastered is a game that shows just how well Steam Deck can handle a big-budget, AAA experience. Marvel's Spider-Man came out in 2018, but its remastered version helped push the power of the PS5. The PC conversion can run even better with a significantly beefy PC, but the Steam Deck version runs impressively well with the right settings. That means you can pack the great-looking visuals and all the web-swinging action into a portable package.

Stardew Valley might be the most popular farming game on the planet. Created almost entirely by a single developer (Eric Barone), the amount of content packed into its adorable, pixelated world is staggering. What starts as a simple quest to rebuild your grandpa’s farm quickly turns into something more. You’ll chat with the locals and form relationships, head out on dangerous mining expeditions, and watch as the quaint Pelican Town transforms through the seasons. Its laidback pace makes it a perfect fit for Steam Deck, giving you a chance to stick your hands in the dirt no matter where life takes you.

Unpacking is another one of those games that feels welcoming to short or long sessions alike. In this wordless wonder from Witch Beam, you learn about unseen characters just by unpacking their boxes on various moving days spread across their life, from childhood into much older age. The point-and-click nature of the game is welcoming to the Steam Deck's multiple input modes, including analog sticks or the touchscreen.

An early access game you can grab on the cheap, Vampire Survivors is very simple but shockingly fun. The single-stick shooter has you navigate around hordes of enemies while your weapons fire off automatically, building up experience to buy new weapon upgrades. The deceptively simple premise gets increasingly fiendish and chaotic as more enemies join the fray, and your weapon upgrades get ever-more destructive. It's enough to tempt you to play just one more round until you realize, oh whoops, it's 3 AM.

Whenever you can take one of the best RPGs in the world with you on the go, you've gotta do it, I say. The Witcher 3 is also playable on Switch, but it looks and runs better on Steam Deck in my personal experience. Though the game is now nine years old, it's still a benchmark in video game storytelling, especially when it comes to those incredible side quests. Exploring the world, meeting colorful characters, and slaying monsters makes any train ride or picnic so much more interesting.