This is 500+ hours of gameplay:

• Half-Life 2 ($2)
• Portal ($2)
• Portal 2 ($2)
• Psychonauts ($1.5)
• Psychonauts 2 ($9)
• Subnautica ($8)
• Hollow Knight ($8)
• Silksong ($16)
• Hades ($8)
• Disco Elysium ($4)
• The Witcher 3 ($3)
• Terraria ($5)
• Left4Dead 2 ($2)
• Kingdom Come ($5)
• Mass Effect 1, 2, 3 ($6)

For $50 I’d get (afaict current prices):

• Hades ($7.49)
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker ($2.99) (make sure to force-enable the Windows build on the Steam Deck, the Linux build has issues with gamepad input on the kingdom management screen)
• One Deck Dungeon ($1.99)
• Slay the Spire ($2.49)
• Wildermyth ($16.24)
• Against the Storm ($8.99)
• Terraformers ($7.99)

This totals now $48.18. If you have an additional dollar to spare, I’d also recommend to get something to scratch that retro-gaming itch:

• The Settlers 2 ($2.73 on GoG - needs DOSBox, for which I’ve written an install guide)

That’s now $50.91 in total.

If you’re on a budget, make sure to redeem the weekly free games from Epic and Amazon if you have Prime. You can play them all on your deck via Heroic Games Launcher.

Here are some extra “gift” games I have in my Steam inventory, mostly from the days when you could accumulate extra copies when buying bundles with games you already had. Message me (TheMinions, or anyone else, really) if you want to share your Steam id and have me send you some of them; I’m happy to give them all away. Note - it may be a few days, to give TheMinions first-come-first-serve, but I’ll send the rest to whomever requests (message me your steam account id and the specific games you want). I’ll likely delete this message when all are accounted for (many of these are likely cheap right now anyway).

The list (and how many copies I have):

Awesomenauts (w/ DLC) - 2x
Bastion - 2x
Contraption Maker - 1x
Dark Souls (not “Remastered” edition) - 1x
Defense Grid (w/ “Containment” DLC)- 1x
DiRT 2 - 1x
Frozen Synapse - 1x
FTL - 3x
Gunpoint - 1x
Hack n Slash - 1x
Half Life 2 Ep 1 - 1x
Just Cause 2 - 1x
Plants vs Zombies - 3x
Poker Night at the Inventory - 1x
Portal - 1x
The Walking Dead - 1x
Torchlight - 1x
Trine 2 - 1x
vvvvvv - 1x

Tomb Raider Survival Trilogy for $7.19

Shadow of Mordor/War for $6.99

Prodigal for $1.49 - Zelda plus date sim

Toem for $3.99 - gotta photograph em all

Crosscode for $5.99 - SPMMOOTY

Saint’s Row 4 $2.99

Vampire Survivors for $3.74 - everybody is legally required to have a copy

20 Small Mazes for $0 Doronko Wanko $0

My main recommendation is “don’t put all of your money into a bunch of PS5 AAA games”. PS5-ish games fit “if we turn all of the settings down, and render in 1/4 rez, and then AI upscale, and still your battery only lasts an hour”. It often isn’t a great experience here.

A strength of the Deck is in delivering an endless back catalog of PS4 and prior styles of games. Another is in bringing forward a ton of indie games that can’t win at “marketing”, can’t afford to develop PS5-level visuals, so they fight like hell on “mixing up new and interesting gameplay” and “price”.

Hades is a great roguelite and is on sale for $9.75CAD right now. If you like that then there’s also Hades 2. It has a really cool story built into it which at least at the time was more unique in the genre.

Try to find slightly older games and they’ll have steeper discounts.

Crashlands 2 is pretty good and quirky.

Be sure to check out Steam’s own “great on deck” category in the store. Each game will also have an indication from Valve on the quality/playability with regard to the Steam Deck

If you like retro, you can’t go far wrong with UFO 50. 50 retro-style games with a modern twist for £20 normally, but £15 on sale now. Ridiculous value for money, because I don’t mean mini-games, i mean games.

Just in general, I’d go the “several indies” route, rather than the “single AAA” route.

Monster Hunter Rise is great on handhelds like the Deck.

Dragon Quest XI is one of the best JRPGs I ever played, and it has an extensive demo (about 10-15 hours) that lets you transfer your save game to the full game.
Problem is the save transfer didn’t work on Linux last time I checked about 2 years ago. Maybe Valve fixed this since. Otherwise if you have a Windows PC you could transfer the save game there, but keep in mind you won’t be able to download the demo anymore once you’ve purchased the game.

Welcome to the joys of Steam OS!

I hate using a joystick for camera control, so I only play 2d titles on my deck. Mostly DRG: Survivor, Tribal Hunter (no, really. It is excellent), and Hades.

BG3 is another good bet too.

Get Rimworld, and write a letter to your friends and family that you wouldn’t see them in a while. Consider spending the rest of the money on IV stand so you stay hydrated.
Rimworld is a drug, it should be classified as a controlled substance.

Balatro and Slay the Spire both play great on the Deck and have amazing replayability.

I’ve put a disgusting amount of hours into Emberward. It’s Tower Defense but no mtx and has a really fun Tetris blocks gimmck to build lanes.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2459550/Emberward/

Yes it’s early access but it doesn’t matter, the game is nearly done anyways, also on sale currently. There’s good Steam Input profiles for the Deck. Dev is adding controller suppport for 1.0 but this doesn’t really matter on a Steam Deck.

I’ve been replaying Dragon Age Origins at work modded via Nexus Mods and running DAO-Modmanager via WINE under Steam’s compatdata prefix.

There’s already a very long list of excellent suggestions , so I’m going to chip in and add only two others. Tunic and Tinykin. Both are Deck verified and on sale right now.