No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky may have come out in 2016, but since it celebrated a pretty epic update this year, it’s getting included on this list. And, dare I say, the Steam Deck is one of the best ways to play this space-exploration sim. Sure, maybe the framerate can be a bit wonky, but hear me out.

The smaller screen and lower resolution just make those voxels come together in a way I’m not used to seeing on a 4k screen. I even find myself leaving the scan lines feature turned on, something I’ve habitually shut off for as long as I can remember. On Deck, though, that visual effect is no longer an eyesore; it actually adds character and sort of smooths out the rougher edges of the presentation. I’d love the font to be a touch larger on the Deck, but the game makes up for it with its vibrant visuals and grand scope, which I find sit so well on the smaller screen that they convey a sense of scale often lost on larger resolutions.

You’ll hit some snags with dropped frames here and there, especially when entering a planet’s atmosphere or piloting in third person. In my experience, these were tolerable, especially when the sense of scale and the visual aesthetic, leave a dramatically more notable impression. On a big screen, everything kind of looks like a toy. But on the Deck, the expansiveness of the planets and solar systems has me very much believing this simulation.