Does somebody already mentioned Grim Dawn? Diablo II like ARPG. From what I’ve heard well playable on the deck. Check out the mentioned 3rd party sites first a good deal, the all in one (two expansions) set should be around 30ish bucks.

Vampire survivors is great for the vegetable state of mind play and usually cheap as fuck.

Core keeper is a great builder game,

Valheim

The old final fantasies like 4 5 6 7 9 10 if you can get them on sale. I’ve had nothing but success on steam key websites.

Mortal sin is amazing.

Slay the spire

Lego Star wars The Skywalker saga is so cheap right now and trust me its so fucking fun

Half life 1 and 2 and half life 2 episodes 1-2

Halo MCC

Portal 1 and 2

Team fortress 2 (probably want a mouse and keyboard for though)

Hogwarts legacy runs surprisingly well on deck too and it’s like $6 right now

Make sure you have a game with sustenance and a game you can veg out on.

While the Deck is capable of running some big AAA games, I personally find that it shines in the low-power, “chill” games that you can play for a while, put down, and come back to when you’ve got some more time.

I’m a big fan of RPGs, so my #1 recommendation is Sea of Stars. Dragon Quest: Builders is also good, along with it’s sequel, which is arguably better.

A good multiplayer game with endless hordes of monsters vs. your magic is The Spell Brigade.

You may not know this, but the Deck can also be plugged into a TV or monitor, and with the help of a USB-C hub, can support a keyboard and mouse too! If you go that route, then I can’t recommend Dyson Sphere Program enough. Ooh! and Timberborn! It’s both adorable and beautifully designed.

If you’re more of a 3rd-person shooter type, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is fan-fucking-tastic (my favourite series of all time) and it’s currently on sale for £5. There are 3 games in the series, and make sure you start with the first one! You don’t regret it.

Finally, note that you’re not bound to the Steam store if you don’t want to be. If you install the Heroic Launcher for example, you can get DRM-Free games from GOG for example. Sometimes you’ll find that games are available on both platforms, but cheaper on one of the other, and GOG games don’t come with controls on how many people can be playing it at the same time.

• Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
• Ys X: Nordics

They look terrible, but are incredible stories and were optimized for Steam Deck. Ys I & II Chronicles also plays great and are fun, though even the remakes feel older. Other Ys games are also fun.

Age of Mythology Retold I think played well and had good controls despite being an RTS.

Halo Master Chief Collection seems to do pretty decent. I played through Reach and most of the first game at least for the single player and enjoyed it.

American Truck Simulator is surprisingly fun and the studio puts ridiculous effort into optimizing for Steam Deck.

Other fun games I’ve played a lot on Steam Deck:

• Just Cause 2
• Overlord 1, Raising Hell, & 2
• Warhammer Inquisitor Martyr
• Gas Guzzlers Extreme
• Warhammer Space Marine (the original)
• Sniper Ghost Warrior 1 & 2 (1 has not aged well but was still fun)
• Saints Row the Third (the original)
• A good amount of Lego games
• Pinball FX3
• Fortix
• Far Cry 2
• Viking Battle for Asgard (no cloud save, be careful and back up game saves)
• The Saboteur (probably one of the greatest forgotten gems of the PS3/X360 era, I think it required minor tweaking to run on Steam Deck)
• Broforce/Expendabros
• Sir Whoopass
• Hustler
• Dungeons of Sundaria
• Shadows Awakening
• Awesome Pea
• Bears, Vodka, Balalaika!
• Disfigured
• Bayonetta
• Redeemer
• Blasphemous
• Parking Garage Rally

Warframe is free to play and very little content aka only certain cosmetics are behind a pay wall. You can easily earn in game currency via trading with other players once you start opening relics. Tons of content and runs great on the deck!

If you haven’t already got it, Hades

You definitely should mention what types of games you like, but I second Stardew Valley, Celeste and Balatro either way. They’re great titles.

If you like cozy games like Stardew Valley, I recommend Mystia’s Izayaka. You can get the bundle with all the dlcs for cheap right now.

Some other great games I can’t recommended enough are Ikenfell, Cult of the Lamb, Later Alligator, Persona 4 and Crow Country.

Also, get an SD card and put Emudeck on it.

Edit: Forgot to mention: you can go on steamdb to get a list of free games that are Deck verified.

I recommend getting some indie and pixel art style titles instead of just going for AAA. Reason being many of these are cheaper ($5-10, sometimes even less) so you can try different genres, and these titles also tend to sip battery so you will get lots of gameplay time.

Examples I have enjoyed, in no particular order-

Animal Well

Celeste

Stardew Valley

Vampire Survivors

Caveblazers

Balatro

Slay the Spire

Slay the spire for sure

Install the PS2 games (or whatever was your first console) of your childhood and bring back old memories. For the PS2 I can especially recommend the OpenGOAL project which let‘s you play Jak & Daxter with modern resolutions. It is basically free if you (like me) still own the games anyway.

Games I have particularly enjoyed on the deck (that I haven’t seen others recommend already) and are relatively cheap: Outer Wilds (not outer worlds), Hardspace Shipbreaker, Enter the Gungeon

get Cyberpunk. The game is great for the current price (also check gog, ITAD)

Megabonk!

Cyberpunk is a great choice in my opinion, especially nowadays where most of the initial shortcomings are fixed and ironed out.

Not a game recommendation specifically but a money extending protip.

Head over to ITAD and make an account. Then you can get notifications when all the games you’re interested in go on sales from legit resellers (including steam itself). As well as when there’s free games to be had. https://isthereanydeal.com/

Edit: also… if you collect the weekly freebies from epic games you can install heroic games launcher on the steam deck to play those.