I am currently juggling both Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077, and I honestly couldn't choose one to suggest over the other. They're both different games but amazing Journeys. I've put about 150 hours in both. I've beaten Cyberpunk and highly suggest the DLC. I'm maybe halfway through Elden Ring and it's so hard but once you grow it, the difficulty becomes satisfying instead of frustrating.
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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Steam Hardware
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The Persona games are on a pretty solid sale right now if you're into those.
I'd also second the bioware games others have mentioned. Fallout and Elder scrolls are usually heavily discounted during sales too. Same with the new tomb raider games.
Aside from that, I'd also check out bundle deals on humble bundle and fanatical if you really wanna stretch your savings!
The steam deck is also super versatile and has taken pretty much anything I can throw at it from emulation to using other launchers to access games from other storefronts and such if you want. Happy gaming and congrats on the new machine!
Hollow Knight is great. I chill out with Vampire Survivors a lot.
Megabonk!
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!
So I had a huge backlog of games I never got around to, now I just snatch up games that are 90% off, odds are they will play great on the deck. There are a lot of F2P games that play well.
Path of Exile plays OK, you're not going to be setting league records but you can casually play.
OpenMW with total overhaul mods probably has the most hours played for me, that game is endless.
Ori and the blind forest and Hollow Knight have been a blast. I just started Silksong and love/hate it.
The entire BioShock series was great, got the whole series on GoG for like $10 a while back.
Primehack is awesome.
Divinity original sin 1 and 2 play great.
Just wait for stuff to go on sale and there's unlimited fun to be had.
If you like retro, you can’t go far wrong with UFO 50. 50 retro-style games with a modern twist for £20 normally, but £15 on sale now. Ridiculous value for money, because I don’t mean mini-games, i mean games.
Just in general, I’d go the “several indies” route, rather than the “single AAA” route.
Crashlands 2 is pretty good and quirky.
If you’re not one of these people who has to have everything running at 60fps to enjoy it, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is only £26.99 ($29.99) at the moment, and is a great game for hours of play, albeit you have to turn the gfx down.
I'll second this. Great game. Definitely more than playable on SD.
Forbidden West struggles a bit more, definitely on the edge of playable, but I still enjoy it 🤷♂️ When I'm home I'll usually stream from my PC though, looks better. You really sacrifice a lot for Forbidden West on SD.
I would set aside $0.00 of the $50.00 for my free copies of Luanti (Minecraft clone) and Mindustry - Factory building tower defense.
You can buy Mindustry for around $5 on Steam or Itch.io to support the developers, but it is also available for free in the Arch software center (by briefly rebooting the SteamDeck into desktop mode).
That’s like, my favorite price man!
Dome Keeper
UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves is about 14 bucks and has around 60 hours of some of the best third person gaming I've played. Initially I thought it was just a Tomb Raider clone, but both the game mechanics and story are very polished.
Plus it played buttery smooth on my system, though it depends on your settings: https://www.protondb.com/app/1659420?device=steamDeck
The downside is that it eventually ends.
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