The games my daughter and I have played on the Steam Deck with high levels of success:
Dave the Diver. Planet Coaster. Untitled Goose Game. It Takes Two. Ori series.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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Dorfromantik, Disco Elysium (read up on the people who made it first because they got forced out of the company, and no longer own all of the rights, so they advise players to torrent it), Civilization games play well on the SD, The Ascent, Tunic...
Kitsune Tails, great SMB3-style platformer game.
Hyper light drifter, Tunic, Fowl Damage, Nine Souls to name a few
Return of the Obra Dinn, UFO 50
Civ 6 works ok on Steam Deck if you turn down the graphics (make the leaders into static pictures especially) and take some time to configure the inputs.
Tonight we riot, Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic (maybe not on steamdeck), Citizen sleeper, China: Mao's Legacy, Democratic Socialism Simulator, They Came from a Communist Planet 
, Fursan al-Aqsa, Luck be a Landlord
The remake of Age of Mythology plays great on it. I've also played Age of Empires I & III Definitive Editions on it a lot, but that required a significant amount of steam controller profile tinkering, and it's only good for slower single player turtle play.
A recent story game I played fully on it was Ys X Nordics. Great action and story game and tons of fun, and ran pretty well on Steam Deck. Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana also played well on it and is a long but incredible story, and Ys I & II Chronicles. All great story driven games I've played on Deck. I'm sure the other Ys games on Steam probably will also be good on Deck.
Some other good options I've played a lot on Steam Deck:
- The first Warhammer Space Marine game
- American Truck Simulator
- Warhammer Inquisitor Martyr
- Sniper Ghost Warrior 2
- Metal Gear Solid V
- Halo MCC, I played a lot of Reach and Combat Evolved on it
- Metal Gear Rising
- Just Cause 2
- V Rally 4
- Shadow Tactics
- Mad Max
These I've also played tons on Steam Deck, but I think they required some tinkering to get running:
- Elder Scrolls Oblivion (not the remake)
- The Saboteur
- Warhammer Dawn of War 1
- Sacred 2 Gold
- Renegade Ops
rain world is pretty good, its sold on itch.io and on steam and it has a cute background story you have to piece together yourself. its a hard as balls physics based platformer/survival sim where you are a piece of very slippery and intelligent prey in the middle of the food chain.
It's not exactly commie, but the Borderlands series has a distinctly anti-capitalist undertone. I'd recommend Borderlands 2 if you have any interest in a looter-shooter, it runs great on the steam deck.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion.
Makes a good on-ramp and warmup when getting back into gaming.
Inscryption and Dave the Diver are two games I really enjoyed
all the yakuza games run great on steam deck (i personally started from 0 and went up).
Balatro is also a fun one to play while watching some TV.
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Lunistice: 3D platformer with kind of 90s aesthetics.
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Star of Providence: formerly known as Monolith, it's a roguelite 2D twin stick shmup that I'll basically always recommend. Funnily enough the name change may have been because of Monolith, the studio that Warner Bros. shut down this year anyway
Spiderman: Miles Morales - it plays amazing on Steam Deck. Outstanding story, graphics, gameplay. Whole package. Game feels alive from first boot up and keeps going.
Also Hades. Hades is a must. It got me into rougelikes and super story deep which keeps expanding as you go. The charecters are super likeable. Has a nice slice of life component to it as well. There are story bits and music that just floor you.
I haven't tried it on deck, but if you like story i'd imagine the Telltale games would play ok on them.
I've been playing AfterLove EP just as a casual side. Slice of life story with some history behind it.
Oh Sakaguchi's last game Fantasian plays well on it. It was originally for Apple but the port is functional and plays much like old school final fantasy with some new mechanics. Uematsu has some bangers as usual, but as a whole I don't think it's his best. (They let you swap out soundtracks)
FF7 Crisis core 
Ghostbusters The Videogame Remastered is really good if you're a fan. Bit dated but holds up.
Balatro is good up to a point. Very reasonably priced. Awards are well earned. 