I remembered a lot of older Steam hardware attempts not doing well, even when I loved the concept of them. I’ll admit, I was pretty skeptical about the Steam Deck at first. Add in the launch of ports like Persona 5 Royal and everyone’s massive Steam sale backlogs, and the Deck had a wealth of games already bought, paid-for, and ready to play for new owners.

Tons of stellar indies like Citizen Sleeper and Norco, and even established hits like Hades all felt right at home on the Deck. Sure, Elden Ring was popular and makes sense, but Vampire Survivors feels like a match made in heaven for the Deck. This was also a stellar year for games that just fit well on the Steam Deck. Other consoles have pretty hefty libraries at this point, but nothing compared to what even a somewhat-frequent Steam user has stored up.

It’s obvious but bears repeating: the Steam library is a massive boon for the Steam Deck. (More on that in another section.) But Verified introduced a system where users, especially less tech-savvy users, could instantly see whether a game was cleared for the Steam Deck or not. Traditionally, Valve has been pretty laid back when it comes to letting users tinker, discover, and work on things. I’d also argue Valve found a lot of success on the Deck thanks to the Verified system. The Steam platform tie-ins really make the Deck useful for taking a game-on-the-go, and then plugging right back in, whether I want the gaming computer or the Deck running the show. My review of Signalisand dozens of hours of Tactics Ogre: Rebornwere all on my Steam Deck, and I’m currently bouncing back and forth on Chained Echoesusing cloud saves. But other games can travel back and forth, or just be played through solely on my Steam Deck. There are still games I play at my PC, for when I want the mouse-and-keyboard experience or need the higher fidelity and horsepower of my setup.

Will the steam deck be good