Steam Deck review: the handheld PC capable of console quality gaming

Imagine PlayStation 4-level performance at Nintendo Switch mobile resolution or better and you have some idea of what Valve’s Steam Deck can actually deliver in terms of raw performance. With minimal tweaking, you’re playing Horizon Zero Dawn or God of War at native resolution at 30fps and to put it frankly, that’s quite a marvel to behold. Steam Deck isn’t a cutting-edge PlayStation Vita successor though – it’s so much more than that. It’s built around a Linux-based iteration of the Steam platform, meaning that in theory at least, you have a machine capable of playing the entire Steam library with access to games stretching back decades. On top of that, this isn’t a locked down console, it’s a fully open PC, meaning that you can effectively run what you want on it – including Windows, if you want.

I suspect it’s for this reason that Steam Deck is so eagerly awaited, because the system offers so much opportunity that inevitably, it becomes the embodiment of what everyone has ever wanted from a handheld. The cheap, powerful handheld Nintendo hasn’t delivered yet with Switch Pro? A portable PS4? The ultimate mobile device for retro gaming? Potentially, Steam Deck can do all of these things and as soon as you’ve sunk a couple of hours into the system, you get some idea of what it’s actually capable of – and from there, the possibilities seem endless.

However, there is also the cold, hard reality of the niggles and frustrations you endure alongside the winning experiences. There’s still the sense that Steam Deck is very much a work-in-progress. SteamOS and software updates arrived throughout the review period, sometimes changing the experience dramatically. Right up until the day before the review embargo, new updates were still appearing (thankfully, with only minor changes) and I expect more to come. The truth is that it was only on Monday February 21st that I felt the system was stable enough to properly review it. There are still plenty of rough edges and in terms of the full Steam library compatibility the system needs, that’s still much to do. For example, Nex Machina and The Witcher 2 freeze with a black screen after loading, Red Dead Redemption 2 crashes randomly, while Doom 64’s continual seconds-long stuttering makes the title unplayable. There’s the sense that there’s still a long road ahead until Steam Deck compatibility is absolutely where it needs to be.