My favorite would probably be No Man's Sky. I had known about it for years but never tried it until this year. I was completely unprepared for how much I would get into it, and how much time I would spend in it. It worked so well on deck too, being able to put the deck to sleep, and then wake it up hours later to collect the harvest from a plant or mineral extractor was very convenient.

My most disappointing was Diablo 4. I was really glad to see it come to steam and thought I would love it, but the always online requirement and how they handled disconnects really killed my enjoyment of the game. One of my favorite things with the Deck is being able to suspend my game anytime and pick it up later, but suspending the deck with D4 means it will disconnect and I'll have to restart the game when I return. It wouldn't be so bad if I just had to wait on the game to reconnect or something similar. It's also a game where you can't pause, and setting it down with the game running always seems to result in my character getting killed by some monster that wandered too close and agro'd. Some other games with always online requirements (like Honkai Star Rail) handle internet much better, I can suspend at anytime and just have to wait for it to reconnect when I wake it back up.

My most pleasant surprise on the Deck this year has been Shadow of War. It plays on high settings at a smooth, consistent 60FPS, even in big battles. As a fan of its predecessor, Shadow of Mordor, I've been loving it!

Worst was definitely American Truck Simulator. I'd been interested in the game for a long while, and finally decided to buy it when it was only $5. I got about halfway through the tutorial before I refunded it and added it to my Ignore list.

I have most hours on Deep Rock Galactic, but it's no longer what I'd call a favorite. I'm getting a bit bored. It runs perfectly and I have clocked 2000 hour on it, so it remains something I can just play through instinct and relax.

My favorite surprise was that developers finally fixed Gunner, HEAT, PC, so it doesn't freeze the steam deck on almost every run. It now works great on Steam Deck with med GFX settings. Although making a good controller setting is a pain and you need virtual menus. Didn't find good ones ready.

Disappointment was Starbourne 2. Keeps freezing the steam deck within 30min, although it had gold level status in protondb. Hard reset is the only way to recover. Dock + keyb + mouse is a must.

The game that surprised me the most was Murder by Numbers. It's a very nice hybrid of a visual novel and a puzzle game. When I had more time I played the story mode, and when I didn't I played the challenges.

My biggest disappointments were games from Sony — Horizon and Spiderman. Both of them are verified, but both of them crash at start-up.

Not sure if I should post since I've just had mine for a week, but my highlights so far are Stardew Valley and Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed.

Stardew Valley is a charming game that's really nice to play while watching something with my wife. It's chill, and doesn't take much attention usually, so it's perfect for the mobile nature of the Deck to play in bed.

Sonic Racing I've been playing with my 5y.o. son. I suck at it, lol. I can't consistently get 1st place in normal mode yet, but it's fun, looks great, and plays smooth as silk.

The one game I tried and immediately put down was Against the Storm. I'm really excited to play it, but the controller is just moving a mouse cursor around. From the little I played, I was instantly frustrated that I needed to move the cursor over small UI buttons to open menus; it doesn't seem to have a sensible control scheme for the Deck, and I mostly play in bed, so a mouse isn't really an option for me. Disappointing, since I was so excited for it!

My favorite was the first Talos Principle, TP2 is also great, but the suspense in the story of 1 was so much I found it hard to put the game down (My Steam year in review shows I played it for 37 days straight). The puzzles in TP1 were also harder (TP2 had hard optional puzzles but the story was so long that I lost all will to do even 1 more puzzle by the game end, plus there's no fast travel to those optional puzzles)

I didn't like Titanfall 2 on the Steam Deck, the game is fine, but FPS games just dont work for me with joysticks.

My favorite, probably Spider man Miles Morales. Other notables: Mudrunner Dead cells Hellblade Senuas sacrifice Horizon Zero Dawn

Least favorite: Mass effect legendary edition It just keeps breaking and I gave up on it. Never buying from that shitty company again.

STAR OF PROVIDENCE!! I bound movement to the left trackpad too, for real precise maneuvers. Amazing game

Biggest disappointment? That's tough, I've enjoyed most games I've played this year. Probably Risk of Rain Returns? Nothing to do with the deck, just didn't feel as fun as the first

My least favorites have to be Call of Duty Black Ops, and Black Ops 3. BO1 doesn’t let you play Zombies EVEN IN SOLO if you aren’t connected to the internet. Black Ops 3 crashed every time I tried to play zombies.

My favorite has to be Cyberpunk 2077. I didn’t expect to love the thumbstick+gyro controls for aiming as much as I did. And driving with a controller in that game is too much fun. It’s making me want to get an OLED just so it’ll look even better in HDR.

Started going through my backlog a couple months ago. I want to give all worthy games a chance, preferably complete before I think about buying another

Started by cutting out all the trash from my library, bringing it from 110 to about 30. I then used a decky plugin to split the games up into:

• Playing
• Story Backlog
• Non-story backlog

I will have max 1 story game in my "playing" group and a bunch of non story games when I want a relaxed, not mentally focused session

Dying light - on hold after ~10 hours

too scary and the strength and stamina of the guy is annoyingly low. The idea of playing it sounds really fun, so I'll probably pick it back up when I feel like playing a scary game

stardew valley - completed main story/objective (the community center). Took me ~80 hours

the only game I've completed this year but I mean it when I say I loved that game. Couldn't put it down, even played for 8 hours straight once; which is very rare for adult me. Only stopped playing because I felt burnt out after nearly 80 hours. There's still content for me to get back to when I want

the Witcher 3 - currently my "in progress" major story game

About 10 hours into my second attempt at a playthrough. Wow what a game. No spoilers at all pls even if it's something that happens at the start

Dishonoured - abandoned after 9 hours

It's a fun game, the story is okay but it's just not gripping me. It's a meh game. I abandoned it when I realised I kept procrastinating it and moved onto the Witcher 3 (thank goodness I did!!). Small chance I try again in the future.

Bully - abandoned after 8 hours

This game did not age well at all.

Very fun idea but it's too old to enjoy. Controls too clunky, missions are too basic, doesn't run smoothly and just a bad experience overall. The missions are also very basic.

Some of the casual, short session games I currently have in the rotation:

• Brawlhala - just downloaded, seems fun.
• Vampire survivors - lives up to the hype 100%
• Forza horizon 5 - my virtual Sunday drive
• Hotline Miami - stuck on a level! Quite a difficult game
• Doom 2016 - one mission per month is enough for me!
• Dirt rally 1 - have to be in a specific mood to play this!

Some games in my story Backlog (in no order):

• GTA IV - up next after I finish TW3
• Fallout 4 - I hate bugs and spiders though D:
• RDR2 - played prologue already
• Shadow of modor
• Shadow warrior

I just realised I put so much effort into a comment no one will read 🙃 it's too late to delete now, I ain't getting my time back so neither are you ;)

Now im doubling down and giving all the info!! I've got nothing better to do (apart from the fact I should have been asleep 2 hours ago)