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Valve just put up another of their round-up posts going over all the recent work on the Steam Deck, and they also revealed the current most popular titles.

For regular readers this won't be news since I go over the changes often but it's still a good catch-up for those who have fallen a bit behind on the news. Some of what's new includes the lock screen, multiple window support, keyboard improvements, external display upgrades, per-application performance profiles, improved fan behaviour and more. Check out their video:

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As for what's popular based on user play-time (source), over the last month these were the most popular on Steam Deck

  • Elden Ring 
  • Vampire Survivors 
  • Rogue Legacy 2 
  • Stardew Valley 
  • No Man's Sky 
  • Slay the Spire 
  • Hades 
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 
  • The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth 
  • Aperture Desk Job

Valve was keen to point out that it's not just because of Steam Deck upgrades or Proton, but effort directly from developers too and four of those titles were previously listed as Unsupported or Playable until they got updated to be Verified. They're making a clear and obvious point: if developers get their games supported, players are more likely to buy them and spend time in them — not exactly a big surprise. Plenty of us just want to play games and not have to tinker so hopefully more will get cracking on updating their games.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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eldaking Jun 2, 2022
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: eldakingEveryone is like "it needs to be really powerful so you can run the latest AAA games on it", and then what are people playing on it? Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire, Binding of Isaac, Hades, Vampire Survivors...

Hold it! Just because Stardew Valley is a pixel art game doesn't mean it's not AAA! 🤣

I call it a "triple I", to acknowledge it's current status while honoring it's humble origins. Still, it is not one of the latest.
Philadelphus Jun 3, 2022
QuoteAs for what's popular based on user play-time, over the last month these were the most popular on Steam Deck:

• Aperture Desk Job
Wha…how? Isn't that like half an hour long or something? Does it have some serious replayability I haven't heard of? Are there a whole ton of Deck owners who have fired it up, played ADJ, and then nothing else, to skew the statistics? Like, nothing against the game (I haven't played it), but I honestly don't understand how that's most popular based on user play-time.

Though I guess if everyone plays it for half an hour it's still as popular as a game that half of Deck owners play for one hour, or a quarter for two hours, and so on… I suppose that says something about the diversity of games enjoyed on the Deck.
klepon Jun 3, 2022
Quoting: eldakingEveryone is like "it needs to be really powerful so you can run the latest AAA games on it", and then what are people playing on it? Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire, Binding of Isaac, Hades, Vampire Survivors...

The logic is probably something like this:

"Yo, now I can play my triple A games everywhere"
*checks library*
"Hmm.... There are so many indie games I never touch, I guess I'll try them"
TheSHEEEP Jun 3, 2022
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It pleases me to see that the Deck is indeed not maidenless.
Zelox Jun 3, 2022
Elden ring is my main game on linux at the moment. Runs perfect.
Its also my first from soft game Iv played so Im completly sold on everything about it. Iv recently checked my lib on protondb and I have 95% playble games in proton. So there is no reason to even boot in to windows anymore, except for work then.
MrBareBones Jun 3, 2022
Quoting: crse
Quoting: eldakingEveryone is like "it needs to be really powerful so you can run the latest AAA games on it", and then what are people playing on it? Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire, Binding of Isaac, Hades, Vampire Survivors...

The logic is probably something like this:

"Yo, now I can play my triple A games everywhere"
*checks library*
"Hmm.... There are so many indie games I never touch, I guess I'll try them"

Probably also helps that alot of the indie games are way way smaller in size than most of the AAA games, so you can have more of them on the device ready to go, versus only like 5-10 of the bigger AAA depending on your Deck model, even with bigger SD Cards
TheSHEEEP Jun 3, 2022
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Quoting: ZeloxSo there is no reason to even boot in to windows anymore, except for work then.
I don't even do that atm, I just run Windows inside of a VM if there's something requiring Windows (e.g. client needs a program to run under Windows).

But of course, that does require a bit beefier PC to run essentially two OS at the same time...


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 3 June 2022 at 8:32 am UTC
syxbit Jun 3, 2022
For everyone saying "why are people only playing indie games"
It's because Playing the Witcher 3 (at high settings) gets you <2h battery life. India games can get you >5h.
That's quite impactful. I have a desktop and a Deck. So I deliberately play indie stuff on the Deck to maximize battery, and mostly play the AAA stuff on my desktop where power consumption doesn't matter as much.
If an improved Deck came out that could do >6h on AA games, I'd play them, but 2h of battery life isn't that compelling.
Mohandevir Jun 4, 2022
Quoting: syxbitFor everyone saying "why are people only playing indie games"
It's because Playing the Witcher 3 (at high settings) gets you <2h battery life. India games can get you >5h.
That's quite impactful. I have a desktop and a Deck. So I deliberately play indie stuff on the Deck to maximize battery, and mostly play the AAA stuff on my desktop where power consumption doesn't matter as much.
If an improved Deck came out that could do >6h on AA games, I'd play them, but 2h of battery life isn't that compelling.

2h of playtime? It's more than my average gaming session!
slaapliedje Jun 4, 2022
Quoting: slavezeo
Quoting: slaapliedjeEdit: This reminds me, I should bench the Atari VCS vs the Steam Deck.

Install holoiso on your Atari VCS :)
Was considering it. Still haven't gotten around to disabling Secure Boot, and I am guessing holoiso does not support it.
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