Still very much in the “this thing is amazing” stage of ownership of the steam deck. I’ve settled on finishing Deathloop (have gotten further than I did on ps5) but I can’t seem to stop trying different things out. Mostly from my backlog but the sales are ridiculous too.
The latest games I’ve tried being Remnant from the Ashes, which works really well, and Back4Blood which works brilliantly despite being marked as unsupported. I keep my eye in a couple of websites and the Reddit forum and saw some some reports that it was actually working well. So I downloaded it and it’s actually one of the best handheld experiences I’ve had since getting the thing.
One issue is that screenshots are much lower quality than I see on screen. If you look at these on a phone, you’ll be seeing it at not quite equivalent quality to what I see in motion on the Deck.
I can’t believe such a demanding game works so well handheld. I’m not sure I’ll ever get my head round it. There’s been a few moments in my life where I’ve felt like suddenly I’m living in the future. This thing is one of them. And they haven’t even enabled Ray tracing yet.
The biggest problem right now is that Easy Anticheat and the like need individual updates, it seems. Updates to the experimental branch of proton (very easily selected in the options for launching an individual game) seem to collate these. So for example Outriders works well enough, with some stutters, on Windows 11 running on an SD card, but I haven’t been able to run it on DeckOS yet.
The rate that Proton gets updated though, I can’t see it being long before I have it running nice and smooth without having to resort to a relatively slow Windows to go installation. Tunic seems to run nicely that way though. So gamepass is available with a little bit of work. I actually think it’ll get enabled native on the deck before long though.
And I’ve not even touched on how good the controller part of the equation is. The back buttons and track pads, combined with the deck’s software, which allows you to do almost anything you like. In Deep Rock, I’ve got one of the back buttons set to equip my scout zip line when I tap it, but if I hold it it chooses my weapon again. This means I can zip and then shoot while turning in the air and land facing the back of a beastie, something that can only normally be done with mouse and keyboard because you would normally have to take your thumb off the stick to switch weapons.
I want to buy a dedicated steam controller (v2 if you like) with this flexibility. It’s ridiculously good.
Aside from coop on a Monday night and a couple of sessions on my Thor save in Elden Ring, I’ve barely touched the other platforms. I’ve definitely not bought anything on them.
