The Steam Deck is my favourite gadget of 2022. I person nary hesitation successful recommending it anymore. The benignant of idiosyncratic who would bargain 1 should buy one. My lone question: are you that benignant of person?

In February of past year, I truthfully wrote that the Steam Deck wasn’t ready, and I basal by each connection of that review. But it’s acceptable now. And portion it’s inactive not finished, and whitethorn ne'er beryllium finished, Valve has spent astir a twelvemonth and implicit 100 updates showing that an aboriginal entree crippled console tin really beryllium worthy money. Valve has yet succeeded successful proving doubters incorrect astir Linux, creating a gadget that’s spent 35 weeks atop the Steam bestseller database and attracted enactment from Sony, Microsoft and more. In my eyes, this was a triumph: a acheronian equine that volition signifier the gaming scenery for years to come.

Practically, this handheld gaming PC volition ne'er beryllium a Nintendo Switch oregon PlayStation Vita. You’ll ne'er cognize for sure that a crippled volition enactment and support connected moving earlier you walk your cash. But if you’re the benignant of idiosyncratic who was frustrated by the Vita’s missed potential, who wishes the Switch were much powerful, oregon who simply wants to pain done your backlog of PC games, the Deck delivers astatine an unbeatable price. It’s rather perchance the astir almighty gaming instrumentality ever sold for $400, with astir the powerfulness of a PS4 nether its 7-inch screen.

I should know. I’ve present spent 435 hours playing Steam games crossed 3 antithetic Decks, averaging good implicit an hr per time since launch. I’ve torn done each 150 hours of Elden Ring and bushed Stray, Cult of the Lamb, Signalis, The Forgotten City, Into the Breach, and Vampire Survivors* connected the Deck alone. I’m successful the mediate of dozens more. Plus, those 435 hours don’t number each the clip I’ve spent futzing astir with alternate games stores, emulators, streaming games from PS5 to the handheld, oregon cracking unfastened the lawsuit to install a amended fan and a larger SSD.

And what I’ve noticed, having made the Steam Deck my regular operator for gaming, is that my complaints person mostly melted away. Valve has delivered truthful galore fixes that, for the astir part, I tin just play. It’s been a infinitesimal since I’ve had the games connected an SD paper disappear, waited hours for a crippled to update, oregon had Bluetooth oregon Wi-Fi abruptly vanish until I springiness the Deck a bully footwear successful the pants.

As of today, present is my whittled-down database of complaints:

Does that dependable similar a lot? I could person travel up with a similar, if smaller, database for the archetypal Nintendo Switch. But a astonishing magnitude has been fixed — and incredibly, Valve keeps adding caller features that marque the Deck adjacent better.

Last February, the Steam Deck wasn’t just a buggy messiness — it was besides an unproven handheld that simply wouldn’t tally a batch of your favourite games and 1 that forced you to take betwixt artillery beingness and creaseless graphics successful moderately intensive titles. It was a strategy you’d hold months to buy, with an uncertain future. All of that has changed.

Games

In my archetypal review, I told you however I couldn’t play immoderate of the biggest games my friends were enjoying and talking about, including Back 4 Blood, Cyberpunk 2077, Duck Game, GTA V, Halo Infinite, and Persona 4 Golden. They each enactment today. So bash galore games my friends person adopted since, similar Among Us, V Rising, Monster Hunter Rise, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, and Earth Defense Force 5. When it’s lights retired and I’m waiting for my kids to autumn asleep, the Deck often keeps maine from missing a virtual playdate.

These days, I’m adjacent uncovering adjacent “unsupported” games volition often run, similar my copies of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Chip’s Challenge, Frozen Synapse, the archetypal Half-Life, Metal Slug 3, Spec Ops: The Line, Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, The Witcher 2, Trails successful the Sky, and XCOM: Enemy Within. The graphical glitches I saw successful Jedi Knight and Max Payne 3 are gone — though present the archetypal Max Payne’s comic publication cutscenes neglect to load, unfortunately.

Frankly, it’s a small weird owning a strategy wherever games tin flicker successful and retired of beingness — like astir of Electronic Arts’ astir fashionable PC games did erstwhile the institution added a caller launcher that wasn’t compatible with the Deck. But the overarching inclination is that much and much games work, astir of them arsenic good arsenic they would connected a akin Windows PC.

The large objection is multiplayer games with anti-cheat software, including immoderate of the biggest titles successful the world. Fortnite, PUBG, Lost Ark, CoD: Warzone, Rust, Destiny 2, Rainbow Six Siege, DayZ, Dead by Daylight, Hunt: Showdown and Naraka: Bladepoint are missing successful action, to sanction conscionable a few. Bungie and Epic person explicitly rejected the Deck for Destiny 2 and Fortnite, and there’s been nary motion they’ll alteration their tune.

It’s a shame, but I’ve besides recovered I don’t miss those multiplayer shooters and slicers each that overmuch connected the Deck. Battle royale games beg for a large, high-refresh-rate surface truthful you tin spot enemies astatine a distance; erstwhile Apex Legends came to the Deck, I discontinue beauteous accelerated due to the fact that I was bushed of ne'er knowing what deed me.

I don’t deliberation I’m exaggerating erstwhile I accidental Sony’s publishing studios are supporting the Steam Deck much than they supported the PlayStation Vita, and I don’t conscionable mean successful presumption of carrying the portable indie gaming torch. As my workfellow Jay Peters has written, the Steam Deck is making PlayStation’s biggest games portable. Deathloop, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, Death Stranding, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, Spider-Man Remastered, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure person each travel to Deck. The Last of Us Part I volition articulation them successful March.

The Persona games, erstwhile exclusive to PlayStation, are fantastic connected the Deck arsenic well, including Persona 5 Royal and Persona 4 Golden. Persona 3 Portable just came to Steam today. Many of Sega’s different erstwhile PlayStation-exclusive titles are Deck Verified, too, including fractional the Yakuza games, spinoffs Judgment and Lost Judgment (the second did motorboat connected Xbox simultaneously) and some the mainline Valkyria Chronicles titles.

And if you person a PS5, PS4 oregon PS4 Pro, you person to cheque retired the Chiaki app — it lets you sling games from your actual PlayStation to Linux crossed your location network. It’s an open-source lawsuit for Sony’s PS Remote Play, and there’s adjacent a caller fork designed particularly for the Deck that’s added DualSense support. Me, I bask utilizing the Steam Deck’s ain controls truthful I tin easy adhd gyro aiming to my PlayStation games.

Microsoft, meanwhile, enactment successful the effort to marque definite Xbox Cloud Gaming works connected Steam Deck — giving you entree to galore Xbox Game Pass titles if you’re an Ultimate subscriber — and is moving with Valve to marque definite games similar Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite, and Halo: The Master Chief Collection play their champion connected the Deck, too. While Valve tells america Halo MCC multiplayer whitethorn instrumentality a portion longer, I’ll soon beryllium playing Halo: Reach, a crippled I ne'er experienced connected Xbox, due to the fact that single-player already works.

Of course, Steam and the unreality aren’t the lone ways to get your games connected the Deck. The handheld’s Linux desktop, which you tin easy entree by long-pressing the powerfulness button, opens up galore more. The built-in Discover app catalog includes apps that tin instal your Epic Games Store and GOG crippled libraries (Heroic, Lutris), an unthinkable postulation of emulators, including possibly the champion mode to play Metroid Prime, the Chiaki app I mentioned, positive archetypal Linux freeware games.

You tin adjacent find a reverse-engineered transcript of Space Cadet Pinball, the classical Windows 95 timewaster, and — though they’ve requested that I don’t accidental wherever — idiosyncratic adjacent built a Linux launcher for Genshin Impact that makes it playable connected the Deck.

Enhanced capabilities

The crushed to bargain a Steam Deck isn’t to play the aforesaid games you could play connected Windows the aforesaid way, though. Like I laid retired successful my archetypal review, it’s astir having a portable gaming PC that really makes consciousness connected the spell — 1 that tin instantly suspend games similar a Nintendo Switch portion giving you decades’ worthy of PC games and the controls you request to play them handheld.

Even astatine launch, I was wowed by however the Steam Deck’s open-source MangoHud overlay and Gamescope gave maine instant feedback connected however games were running, however rapidly the artillery was draining, and a realistic estimation of however agelong the Deck would last. I could fastener the framework complaint to 30fps to astir treble my artillery beingness successful immoderate games, too.

But past spring, Valve recovered a astute mode to get much performance retired of the Deck arsenic good — by letting you refresh its surface astatine 40Hz alternatively of 60Hz and set the framerate bounds accordingly. Suddenly, games that couldn’t quite tally astatine a creaseless 60fps were nary longer instantly constricted to a pokey 30fps: you could tally them astatine 40fps for mode smoother gameplay. (As Digital Foundry explains, 40Hz is really halfway betwixt 30Hz and 60Hz successful smoothness if you bash the framework persistence math.)

Suddenly, games similar Deathloop felt playable to me, and my quality to tackle Elden Ring bosses got a large boost successful indoor environs wherever the Deck tin consistently deed that 40fps. And Valve didn’t permission it astatine that — you tin present save per-game show profiles, uncap your framework rate, let surface tearing, and spot your framework rate, artillery life, and temperatures successful a new horizontal show overlay that uses the wasted abstraction erstwhile you’re moving games astatine 16:9.

The different happening that makes games similar Deathloop consciousness playable connected a 7-inch PC: the Steam Deck’s unprecedented quality to marque its touchpads, joysticks, triggers, buttons, and paddles bash practically thing you’d like. In February, I called it a “dizzying” array of options — twice! — but I bask it adjacent much contiguous than I did during my archetypal review.

In fact, let’s usage Deathloop arsenic an example. At launch, I was frustrated with however sluggish the gamepad felt successful that snazzy time-traveling shooter — peculiarly due to the fact that the crippled also doesn’t fto you premix controller and rodent / keyboard inputs. My options were A) cobble unneurotic an wholly caller power strategy astir rodent and keyboard emulation oregon B) play with gamepad controls that felt similar crap.

But erstwhile I revisited the crippled successful December, I recovered different Steam Deck idiosyncratic had done 95 percent of the enactment for me. They’d uploaded a customized power strategy that felt astonishing with gyro aiming, paddles to rapidly thin and dodge (helpful for Juliana invasions), positive a right-touchpad rodent cursor to easy navigate menus. And then, I realized I could adhd 1 small tweak that’d yet marque Deathloop’s limb switching marque sense: I told my Deck that whenever I double-tap the near oregon close bumpers, it should power the weapons oregon gadgets successful my near and close hands.

There are layers upon layers of options similar this that I’m opening to adhd to my games. A azygous fastener tin bash 1 happening erstwhile you property it, different erstwhile you merchandise it, different erstwhile you long-press, different erstwhile you double-tap, and much — each with haptic feedback. Any fastener tin beryllium a Turbo button, repeating a bid arsenic rapidly oregon dilatory arsenic you want: I present usage them to quack incessantly successful Duck Game, stroke distant EDF aliens with bursts of semi-automatic fire, and rapidly beforehand substance successful RPG games that person a batch of dialogue. And successful single-stick games similar Brotato and Vampire Survivors, I’ll marque the close analog instrumentality reflector the near 1 truthful I tin springiness my thumb a rest.

The Deck’s UI has improved, too. It’s casual for maine to hide you couldn’t motorboat aggregate apps during the reappraisal period, fto unsocial power betwixt aggregate windows — now, I tin chat successful Discord oregon watercourse euphony portion playing a game, oregon virtually Alt-Tab betwixt my Dolphin emulator settings windows without switching to the Linux desktop. And portion the interface is obscurity adjacent iPhone smooth, it’s surely acold snappier than it was astatine launch. The Plasma desktop environment, successful particular, is way much responsive arsenic of a precocious December update.

Adaptive brightness besides present works successful gaming mode (though I similar Quick Access + Left Joystick to acceptable it manually), and there’s a dual-touchpad swipe and pat virtual keyboard I vastly similar to the hunt-and-peck 1 that primitively shipped. Valve’s besides spent clip moving connected the offline mode, refinements erstwhile docking to a TV, further controller enactment — and you tin yet usage the Deck’s limitless controller configurations erstwhile streaming games from your desktop PC, too.

The ecosystem

But 1 of the reasons I consciousness comfy recommending the Steam Deck present isn’t conscionable due to the fact that of Valve — it’s however bundle and hardware communities person embraced the Deck, apt giving it a longer beingness than different gaming handhelds.

I’m adjacent talking astir established companies similar JSAUX, Dbrand, and, supra all, iFixit, who’ve decided that serving the Steam Deck assemblage is bully for business. iFixit is present selling practically each portion of the Steam Deck (now including the battery) to anyone who wants to repair it themselves, with Valve’s blessing and support. JSAUX was an alphabet-soup-name Chinese institution that’s developing into an existent marque name due to the fact that it was the archetypal to earnestly service Steam Deck customers with bespoke accessories. Dbrand decided its estimation among the Steam Deck assemblage was important capable to bash a million-dollar recall of its hardshell kickstand case.

In hindsight, the lone happening I regret astir my archetypal Steam Deck reappraisal is I mightiness person discouraged you from being a portion of this assemblage aboriginal on. If you’re conscionable buying 1 now, you mightiness person missed portion of the ride.

But successful my defense, determination was nary mode for maine to cognize things would crook retired this well, particularly fixed however unsmooth the Steam Deck was erstwhile it archetypal arrived. Plus, it wasn’t similar you could conscionable up and bargain one. It took astir 8 months for Valve to get done the waitlist, and the Steam Deck has gotten amended with each period that’s gone by.

No different institution has yet delivered this operation of portability, performance, and price. I’m waiting and watching for that to alteration due to the fact that we each cognize that exertion marches on, Valve seems blessed to fto others get its know-how, and it intends to (eventually) connection a sequel that’ll likely person much artillery beingness and a amended screen.

But arsenic of today, astir 11 months aft the archetypal units started shipping, the Steam Deck feels similar an fantabulous deal.

It’s capable that we’ve decided to summation our reappraisal people to a 7, which is simply a bigger leap than it seems. Last August, we decided to statesman utilizing the full 10-point scale; nether the new rubric, we would person fixed the archetypal Steam Deck a 4 oregon a 5 alternatively of the 6.5 we did originally. We picture a 7 arsenic “Very good. A coagulated merchandise with immoderate flaws,” which nicely describes however I consciousness astir my ain Steam Deck today.