Steam Deck

Earlier this year, Valve revealed the Steam Deck — a handheld gaming console that at first glance seemed like a direct competitor to the Nintendo Switch. It looked like the Switch, it docked like the Switch, and you could carry it around like a Switch. In follow-up interviews, Valve was quick to remark that it isn’t actually competing in the portable handheld market. Instead, it’s just trying to make PC gaming more accessible by “un-chaining” you from your desk and allowing you to take your games with you. I’ve mostly found this to be true in my experience with the product so far.

I received the Steam Deck earlier this month after weeks of being on the waitlist, and it was an exciting moment. I had all but abandoned my Steam library after my gaming laptop died a few years ago and I never bothered building a PC or getting a new gaming laptop. Between my PS5 and my Switch, I had access to all the games I wanted to play, save for first-person shooters like Overwatch. As I get older, I’ve realized that I’m losing most of my appetite for twitch-reaction FPS games, so I’ve been gravitating more and more towards RPGs and single-player narrative focused experiences. The issue is that there’s tons of great indie darlings that fit into this category and release on Steam only, never making it beyond the PC gaming ecosystem. In addition, my existing Steam library already has a huge backlog of unplayed games that I impulse-bought during a Steam sale and never actually got around to playing.

These factors, combined with the idea of portability, made the Steam Deck a very appealing purchase for me. I didn’t love the idea of having to sit at a desk to play PC games and wanted to be able to take my setup around the house or to coffee shops where I could experience the game in a different environment. I literally waited months for Disco Elysium to release on the Switch because it’s such a narrative-heavy game that’s best suited for a portable device, but it stuck to a PC-only approach for several months post-release. I finally got it on Switch and had to suffer through many performance issues to even play it properly. Enter the Steam Deck, promising to solve all my gaming-related first world problems for the low starting price of $399.

I obviously put in a reservation as soon as I could. My only concern with the product was Valve’s long-term commitment to it. The company is infamous for its flat hierarchy within the organization where employees can pick and choose what to work on depending on what they’re the most passionate about. As a result, many launched products are left abandoned after they ship due to burnout or various other factors. The Steam Controller is a great example of this, where I bought the very first one that came out and loved using it for playing PC games like The Witcher 3, Dishonored 2, Prey, Titanfall 2, and many more on Steam. But after launch, Valve didn’t do much to improve it and launch a second version, or provide any meaningful software updates to improve game compatibility.

Steam Machines could also be considered a failed entry into the hardware space, where they promised pre-packaged PC hardware that would efficiently stream and run Steam games from SteamOS anywhere around the house via Steam Link. And yet, they ran into several manufacturing issues with OEMs and the whole idea never quite gained the kind of popularity that they were expecting. I think the most confusing thing about this product is who it was for — hardcore PC gamers likely already had a gaming setup and preferred the extensibility of the keyboard & mouse approach. A Steam Machine promises the performance of PC gaming on your TV where you have the option to use a controller instead with a more seamless UI. For many PC gamers who already had high-end monitors with high refresh rates and screen resolutions, the appeal just wasn’t there. So the whole concept died a slow death.

I could say I was just as wary about purchasing the Valve Index VR kit, but it was actually the high entry cost and the roomscale-VR aspect of it that put me off. I didn’t think it was worth spending $999 on a VR kit that also required a dedicated space in the house to experience VR games. I came close to biting the bullet when Half Life: Alyx came out to roaring applause, but I never actually bought it. The plan was to try it out at a friend’s house or temporarily rent it from somewhere in the future to experience a Half Life game in VR with all the finger-tracking goodness, but that also never quite happened due to pandemic-related constraints.

I’ve always been a big Valve fanboy. It was my dream company to work at during one point, and their games have always been a shining example of excellent design. Team Fortress 2 remains my most-played video game of all time where I’ve clocked in an embarrassingly high four-digit number of hours in the game since it released in 2007 (no regrets). The Portal and Half Life universes are some of the most memorable gaming experiences I’ve ever had, and I really wish they hadn’t pivoted so hard away from games. In a way, it’s understandable. Gabe Newell himself had stated in many interviews from the early 2010s that Valve as a company needed to tackle the foundational elements of PC gaming, because the input mechanics of a keyboard and mouse as well as the overall architecture of a monitor and a tower hadn’t significantly evolved since the dawn of personal computing. Gaming deserved a dedicated way of interacting with input methods, and it was non-existent. Valve could have simply accepted this constraint of always needing to interact with the limited input methods, but they went down a different path. They chose to tackle it head-on by experimenting with hardware, and I’m glad they did. They’ve been attempting various ways to improve the PC gaming experience, and there have been many pitfalls, but I do think that they’ve finally got something great going with the Steam Deck.

My Steam Deck actually arrived earlier this month, and the first thing that struck me about it was its wonderful packaging. There was a companion cube on the outside indicating the upright position of the box, an inside-joke that only Valve fans would appreciate, along with an illustration of carrying the package with care involving a humanoid figure that had hearts emanating from it. It’s the little things. All Steam Deck models come with a carrying case, a nice touch from Valve. They really want you to carry this thing around and take your games with you. I will say though, it’s a bit bulky for that. It’s sort of giant and much larger than the Nintendo Switch, so I don’t know if I personally see myself carrying it on airplanes when traveling. I do plan to use it when working out of coffee shops locally and around the house, though.

The first thing that stood out to me when I held it is its ergonomics — it felt really comfortable to hold. It looked awkward in pictures with a ton of buttons and trackpads splattered all over its front side, but holding it actually feels really sturdy and comfortable. All buttons are within reach, joysticks feel good, and the triggers are easily accessible. There’s even two sets of paddles on the back for additional button mapping, which I love. It honestly makes the buttons and joysticks on the Switch joycons feel flimsy and cheap. The haptics on the Steam Deck are also excellent. The trackpads have individual motors that track where your finger is, and the Deck as a whole has a really good vibration along where you’re holding the device. Speakers are also solid and sound great. Overall I’m just very impressed with the build quality and feel of the device.

Steam gets a lot of crap for being inconsistent in its visual language, but the OS on the Steam Deck is actually quite elegant. I was impressed with the minimal nature of it and how well thought out the UX of browsing, discovering, purchasing, and installing games was. Again, it makes the Switch’s eShop look like an absolute joke. One of the best parts of the Steam Deck is that you can boot into a Linux OS and use it as a regular desktop computer. I installed Battle.net on it and have been playing Overwatch 2 on it seamlessly. There’s some minor technical issues and glitches that you have to work around, and you need to remap some custom controls to tweak it to your personal preferences, so playing non-Steam games don’t quite have the “right out of the box, plug and play” feel that most Deck-verified Steam games have. But I love that it’s possible and that Valve decided to allow it.

What’s more, you can install any emulator you want and emulate almost any video game from any last-gen (or before) platforms: PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Wii, Switch, 3DS, N64, all Xbox consoles, and so much more. For tinkerers and enthusiasts who like retro gaming or need a quick way to relive old gaming experiences, this is a godsent. With companies like Nintendo taking aggressive monetization schemes to offer old games with an online subscription, this Steam Deck emulation approach definitely feels more appealing. You can literally have any game you want in a portable format and take it with you wherever you go, given you’re willing to put up with a bit of hassle during the installation process.

I’ve been playing a few Steam games on the Deck so far, and am definitely a fan. This has now essentially fully replaced keyboard-and-mouse PC gaming for me. I still occasionally prefer the accuracy of keyboard-and-mouse setups in FPS games like Overwatch, and the beauty of the Steam Deck is that it also allows for this: you can dock it (just like the Switch) to an external display and also connect a physical keyboard and mouse to it. Then you just play it like a regular game and get all the benefits of traditional PC gaming. Sure, it won’t output the highest possible performance, but that’s a compromise I’m completely okay with. You’re getting quite a lot from the PC gaming ecosystem for the low price of $399.

Valve has outright mentioned that they were a little shocked by the success and pre-orders of the Steam Deck, and that it has indeed gained enough traction already for them to start working on the next iteration of the hardware. This is what gives me faith that this won’t be yet another abandoned hardware product from Valve and that they’re willing to continue investing in it over the years. They’ve already been supporting it quite well with software updates and getting several games “Deck-verified,” so fingers crossed that this trend continues. In the next iteration of the Steam Deck, I’d love to see VR integration, if that’s at all possible. I know that’s a big ask from a portable device and I know little to nothing about the technical capabilities here, but if there’s one company that could make it happen, it’s Valve. Maybe VR games are only accessible in docked mode, or maybe you need to purchase a separate external GPU / RAM unit for $99, but if you have it and you could play Half Life Alyx with a cheaper version of the Valve Index on the Steam Deck with all the finger-tracking benefits, it would be quite the irresistible sell for many gamers worldwide.