What I’m less enthused with, however, is how unpredictable the device can be even a year after launch. Those are the aspects that make the Steam Deck a truly special device, and I’m glad they’re present, even if I don’t use them much. There’s even a performance overlay that lets players see things like frame rate running in real time - a tool I use a lot when playing Vampire Survivors. Steam Deck offers much more flexibility at a system level, giving players the tools they need to boost performance, conserve battery, or anything they’re looking to customize. Something like the PlayStation 5 is a plug-nd-play affair - if a game runs poorly on it, there’s not much you can do to fix it. Few gaming consoles really give players the power to meaningfully fiddle with their hardware settings in the way a PC does. To be fair, that’s the appeal of the device for folks like Jacob. What I quickly learned in the past year is that the device is every bit as temperamental as my rig, if not more so. When the Steam Deck was first announced, I was excited about the possibility of a more streamlined PC gaming experience akin to a Nintendo Switch. I’d rather just load a game up and have it run on tech it’s optimized for. I don’t have the most up-to-date parts, so getting a new release to function optimally can be a song and dance I just don’t want to deal with.

But more importantly, I can’t stand the frustration that comes from tinkering with settings to get a game running right. For one, I’d just rather sit on my couch and play something on my TV than sit at the same computer I use for work. I play plenty on my rig, but I try to avoid it as best as I can.

While I’m taking the role of a console gamer in this argument, I’m not allergic to PC gaming. It’s time for the age of always-online single-player games to endĢ023 is already an excellent year for rhythm gamesĪtomic Heart restored my fragmented faith in PC ports

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