Two years ago, I wrote about the fact that I had major Steam Deck FOMO but still wouldn't cough up a few hundred bones for one. That changed last year, after a few too many festive beers led to an impulse purchase and an OLED model arriving at my door a few days later.
I will admit, I was a bit of a Steam Deck naysayer, even right up to the moment I came face-to-face with my shiny new handheld for the first time. When it originally launched, I feared it would go the same way as Valve's previous inventions in the VR and streaming space, a concern that's been assuaged since—the company's been pretty serious about making the Steam Deck happen, and I can't see support going away anytime soon.
Still, I was worried that it would end up like my poor Nintendo Switch, neglected inside its case, the location of its charger long lost to the darker corridors of my mind palace. A little too late and with my wallet so light it was practically airborne, I wondered: with so many different videogame gadgets and gizmos vying for my attention, would there even be any point in adding the Steam Deck to my ever-growing tech collection?
So, uh, is the Steam Deck worth it?
God, yes. It is so worth it, at least for my needs and how it fits ever-so-smoothly into my current gaming habits. I feel like one of those relentlessly annoying millennials who got an air fryer and proceeded to not shut up about it until everyone they knew also had a countertop convection oven (it's me, I'm also that person). Honestly, what is a Steam Deck if not an air fryer for gamers?
Okay but no, seriously, a Steam Deck has allowed me to reconnect with my biggest hobby, even as this job has often pushed me away from it. I work at my desk five days a week, using the same rig I play games on in my non-work time. I'm not always necessarily jazzed about the idea of spending several "me time" hours sitting in the same place I just spent a third of my day doing my job.
It's surprisingly freeing, unshackling myself from that and being able to loll on my sofa or tuck up in bed and dig into my backlog. I finished games this year that I likely wouldn't have gotten very far in otherwise. My 160 hours in Metaphor: ReFantazio were almost exclusively spent either playing natively on the Steam Deck or streaming it from my PC, letting me kick back with a controller and play my JRPG the way god intended.
I'm a sucker for cosy games, too, and what's cosier than being able to get under half a dozen warm blankets and play Fields of Mistria horizontally while I lose all feeling in my forearms and fingers? Absolutely nothing, I tell ya. The Deck has been a fantastic bit of kit for integrating into my everyday life—it's turned once-gruelling train journeys or flights into something I secretly look forward to as a way to unwind with some games I might not've tried otherwise.
Case in point, I played a bunch of Dungeon Clawler while on a 90-minute train ride recently. It's a game that could've easily gotten sucked into my ever-growing pile of "I'll definitely play that at some point", but it turned out to be the perfect easy-and-quick pickup game for a relatively short journey.
It sounds dead silly to say that owning a Steam Deck has made me surprisingly more flexible about what games I try, but it kinda has. I'll happily pick up something for a few bucks in a Steam sale to try out on a plane where I can't mindlessly scroll Reddit for two hours, or while I'm away from my desktop visiting family. It's the perfect device for sampling new things, and it's undeniably broadened my gaming horizons this year.
There's also a quiet joy in getting something like the Steam Deck and realising I already have hundreds of games ready to go. It's like backwards compatibility, but cooler. It's everything compatibility. Almost every game in my library—with a few tweaks here and there—can run on my Steam Deck. That's freaking rad. It makes old games feel new, and new games feel weirdly magical in how they can be stuffed into this tiny portable doodad.
I finished games this year that I likely wouldn't have gotten very far in otherwise.
I dunno, I'm rambling at this point, but I really do believe that the Steam Deck is the perfect PC gaming companion. I haven't used it every day of the year—hell, my Steam Replay claims only 15% of my overall playtime was using my Deck, though those numbers don't account for any offline hours, of which I have a lot—but it's been integral in helping me fall in love with PC gaming all over again.
I've travelled home to spend the holidays with my family, and I must confess I spent a lot of time beforehand thinking about what games I could play on my Steam Deck while I'm there. I've got Yakuza 0 and Sleeping Dogs locked and loaded, while I'll no doubt be sinking some time into old favourites like Balatro and Stardew Valley, too. Unnecessary train ride on Christmas Day, anyone?
