I’ve written two articles so far about the popularity of certain games on the Steam Deck, one in which it was based on information from the official Steam Deck Twitter account and the other being based on a list Valve released showing the most popular Steam Deck titles over a one year period. However, Valve have gone above and beyond and have now added a Steam Deck section to their stats page which updates on a daily basis and shows the top 100 games being played on the Steam Deck either by week, month or year. With that being the case, I thought it worth looking at some of the most popular games on the Steam Deck.
Looking at the monthly statistics, the top 10 don’t seem to be terribly surprising and fall in line with the information we’ve had before. The most played game of the past month has been Elden Ring but that makes perfect sense to me as the DLC just came out recently. Stardew Valley, Balatro, Baldur’s Gate 3, Hades, Vampire Survivors and GTA V are mainstays while Fallout 4 has been bolstered by the recent TV series, No Man’s Sky has received a new major update and Dave the Diver has also been updated along with a recent sale.
However, that’s to be expected. The real juicy info comes from the games afterwards since we’ve never been able to see past the top twenty at most in the past. Something that immediately caught my attention upon starting at the bottom was the presence of a demo in the top 100, the free trial for Final Fantasy XIV. Considering how much content is offered for free, this does ultimately make sense but I still think it’s impressive that a demo is present at all (and for those wondering, the actual Final Fantasy XIV is 48 on the list).
The presence of multiplayer shooters is also quite surprising to me. The online competitive scene can be incredibly demanding and the use of keyboard and mouse on PC can make this even more so. I myself struggle to imagine playing these games on a Steam Deck but that hasn’t stopped games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops III (92), Counter-Strike 2 (84), Overwatch 2 (74) and Halo: The Master Chief Collection (37) from being among the most popular titles for Steam Deck!
However, what I perhaps find most shocking is the presence of strategy games! I know the Steam Deck has a touch screen and track pads but it’s still hard for me to see the Steam Deck as suitable for playing strategy games. Nonetheless, enough people play these games on it that titles like Rimworld (77) and Civilization VI (40) have managed to crack the top 100. It genuinely makes me wonder how many people are attempting to play games like Command & Conquer, Dawn of War II, Total War etc. on the Steam Deck and how seamless or not they are to play.
Looking at this list has given me a newfound appreciation for the diversity of games that the Steam Deck can play and, while I would never choose to play a competitive shooter or strategy game on the Steam Deck, it’s heartening to see these genres finding success on the platform. Let me know what you think about this list of popular games on Steam Deck, which games you found most surprising to see listed when you were looking, what you think about this new level of transparency when it comes to popular games on Steam Deck and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.