Hello peeps. Life’s thrown me some curve-balls recently, and I’d like a bit of an escape. Can anyone recommend a decent game in the vein of Skyrim, Fallout or Deus Ex/System Shock for the steam deck, that isn’t 25 or 30 quid please? Something on offer for less than a tenner would be ideal. I’m sure there are some great older RPGs out there that I’ve missed, the Deck is the first time I’ve got back into gaming for quite a few years, and while I’m sure I could quite happily just play Brotato for the next few years, I reckon there’s something a bit more immersive out there for me to find!
If you want a big open world game, I can recommend Mad Max, you can find it in fanatical (a legal and trusted store) for $2.49. I had a lot of fun with it and it will give you tons of hours of fun.
I’m still fresh to the deck, so I’ve not tried all this steam-key-store business out, but from my quick peruse, that site looks good to know, and mad Max looks right up my street, or outback track as the case may be
I love these pixel-art sidescrollers, so I’ll definitely give this a go. One of the first deck games I bought was Expendabros, and I enjoyed it for what it was, and the nostalgia. It actually made me want to play Flashback again, and it just so happens that Flashback is less than a quid this few days, so that’s going to be me for the next few days!
I've really been enjoying Kingdom Come: Deliverance and swapping between my PC and SteamDeck. It runs pretty well on the Deck. Reminds me of how I felt playing Skyrim. Excited to get to the sequel.
It's still kinda janky IMO, and there are some parts where the performance can tank. But I'm not really treating as a fast-paced action game so it doesn't really affect my enjoyment.
i am a much more relaxed gamer on the deck and oh boy these games have such a satisfying layer to them when just vibing there.
spent an hour hiking the mistlands for the vibe last week
valheim is a bit more on the expensive side but skyrim is often for sale at like 10 bux
Shadows of doubt feels similar to old school Deus Ex. $30 normal price, so wait for a sale.
You run around a dark rainy city as an ex cop turned freelance detective.
Take up small side jobs, break into buildings, make phone calls, buy coffee, listen to jazz in your apartment, read about a murder in the paper, sneak into a bloody crime scene to gather clues, hack computers, make a tangled conspiracy board, drink stolen alcohol until you're staggering down alleys, have crazed monologues, get an epiphany, track down a suspect, accuse them of murder, arrest them, close the case, find out they were innocent after all, repeat
I had the most fun with Vampire Survivors - addictive, relatively short bursts, but suitable for longer sessions. Dirt cheap.
I also liked MultiVersus.... before it became a micro-transaction filled abomination. The core gameplay loop is still great tho.
General recommendation: Pick single player games from 3-4 years ago and back. The ones you were really interested in when they came out, but did not yet get around to playing them. Due to their age, they are almost guaranteed to run well on Deck, and they provide hours upon hours of fun. That's my strategy at least :)
Based on the games you listed, Morrowind! One of my absolute favorite old RPGs. Out of the elder scrolls games it's the one with the strongest world building, which paints a nuanced picture of a very strange and compelling world. Compared to Skyrim in particular it's more like a pen-and-paper rpg and less like an action game which gives it a higher barrier to entry. In particular, a lot of people find the combat frustrating at the start.
The modding community for the game is very active to this day. To begin with, there's OpenMW which is a re-implementation of the engine that runs natively on Linux and contains various bug fixes and quality of life features. There's also a fork of it, tes3mp, which allows you to play Morrowind in multiplayer!
There's also Tamriel Rebuilt which is a modding project that adds the mainland of Morrowind (the base game just takes place on an island called Vvardenfell) and adds maybe another game worth of content. Theres also Project Tamriel which has one project that recreates Skyrim based on Morrowind-era lore and one that recreates Cyrodiil based on Morrowind-era lore.
Nobody recommended Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines yet. You should definitely try this one. It's a bit like old Deus Ex in gameplay, has excellent atmosphere and soundtrack. One of my top recommendations.