I’ve owned a Steam Deck since April – a birthday gift I deeply desired.
In the first few months, I fired up the old favorite of Counter Strike and figured out what else out of my 100 game Steam collection is playable on the Deck. But I couldn’t figure out one thing – what’s the killer game for this device?
What’s the one thing that will make me keep coming back and wanting to keep coming back when I can’t?
I couldn’t find it. I spent some money here and there, played some demos here and there. But nothing stuck.
100 games – that’s a big collection. Though, out of that, only about 40 or so seem to have exceptional support on the Deck. Of those, only 20 or so interested me in terms of graphics and what I’m doing with the game.
Of those, basically none captured my imagination.
Then, about a month ago, I came across Skyrim on a bargain bin site. I remember happy hours playing this game. Not too challenging, adequately open world, a storyline that catches you every once in a while because a random dragon will plop down and force you to kill it. With the Skyrim Special Edition I have on Steam now, I get a lot more missions, artifacts, strange tales. I also get to explore the idea of mods. I’ve never modded any games. With Skyrim, I can dip my toes into that space and see how it works. Folks online swear by running Skyrim as an NPC, or in Cozy mode, or adding skins and missions and areas, all of which is very interesting to me.
But most importantly – it beckons me. I want to go back to it at the end of every day, to unwind as I roam the terrain in search of one mission or one cave or one challenge to conquer. I can’t get to it every day. But when I do, I come out satisfied by the experience.
I don’t know how long Skyrim will hold my interest. Last time, once I’d finished the main quest, I dropped the game. But this time, I want to revisit it and play as some other character, and see if I can install mods to make it a wild ride. With Skyrim, it’s possible, simply because even 17 or so years later, this game still compels people.
It’s a proper killer game for the Steam Deck.