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Indie games are perfect for handheld gaming, and even though Valve’s new portable beast can do a lot more, we often find ourselves going back to the simpler experiences that indie games offer. There are so many to choose from, but here are a few of the best Indie Games For Steam Deck. With chip shortages affecting manufacturers all over the world, it’s impressive that the Steam Deck has sold over a million units so far.
This consistent demand shows that Valve has hit a home run by making a dedicated gaming device that can play Steam libraries locally, making PC gaming more portable than a laptop. Steam is the best place for independent games, and every month, a lot of great ones come out. In this section, we’ll show you the best independent games you can play on Steam Deck.
This list is not in any particular order, and it includes both new and old games. Valve has also “verified” all of these games on Steam Deck, so you shouldn’t have any trouble playing them on the system. Depending on when you read this, we hope this helps you find a cool new independent game or give an older one a try on Steam Deck during the Steam Summer Sale 2022.
Best Indie Games For Steam Deck
Slime Rancher 2
Many people who have played the Steam Deck have changed the way they play games. It’s a machine that calls to you at the end of a long day, telling you to put your feet up and dive into colourful worlds. Slime Rancher 2 is the perfect example of a game that draws you in with its cute and colourful art style and keeps you playing with its fun and cute slime-wrangling gameplay.
Rainbow Island looks great on the 800p screen of the Steam Deck. The bright colors really stand out. It’s a relaxing experience that works well on a portable gaming console, but it has been known to drain the Deck’s battery life and needs a few changes to keep it going longer. Overall, it is one of the best Indie Games for Steam Deck that you can download from official website for free.
Hades
Since their first game, Bastion, Supergiant Games has been one of the market’s most successful and creative independent game developers and publishers. Since then, their other games, Transistor, Pyre, and now Hades, have won a lot of awards and wowed people with their beautiful art direction. Hades has a lot to discover and brought something new, exciting, and easy to understand to the roguelite genre.
It has great combat and a story that grows and changes based on how the player escapes the Underworld and how well they do it. Hades is a must-have for any library. It has more than 185,000 reviews and a “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on Steam. In September 2022, it was one of the most-played Steam Deck games.
Kena: Bridge Of Spirits
Kena: Bridge of Spirits was originally only available on Sony. It’s a charming indie action-adventure game with fun puzzle-solving and platforming, an interesting story with likeable characters, and stunningly beautiful graphics. It fits in well on the Steam Deck and runs surprisingly well for a game with so many graphics.
With a “Verified” status, everything is easy to set up and works well without much work. This is a great indie game that feels like a triple-A game. The game’s beautiful graphics and art design show that Ember Lab has a lot of experience with animation. This is one that really shows off what the system can do.
Little Witch In The Woods
Even though farming simulators have been around since the 1990s, Stardew Valley made it popular to have a retro look and a real-life community with more to do than just plant seeds. For years, games have taken the same basic idea and made it their own. Little Witch in the Woods is a great example of how fun and flexible the genre can be.
As an apprentice witch, players can craft, explore, and do all kinds of witchy things, like helping people in the town, to make the world a better place while she gets better at what she does. Little Witch In The Woods is also Steam Deck Playable, which means it will run without any problems. However, it doesn’t automatically set itself to the Steam Deck’s native display, so the user will have to make a few small changes.
Tunic
Don’t be fooled by how cute Tunic looks on the outside. It’s colourful and has a fun, silly tone, but this game is as hard as they come. It shows where it got its ideas from by combining the classic action-adventure style of Zelda games with the punishingly hard skill-based combat of the Dark Souls series.
Even though the game is hard, it is a lot of fun to play because the levels are so well made and the graphics are so bright and beautiful. It also has a creative in-game manual that you have to fill out yourself. This is a unique way to give you hints when you don’t know what to do next. This is a great independent game for any platform, and the Steam Deck is the best way to play it on the go.
Bright Memory: Infinite
The Steam Deck is a portable system with a lot of power that impresses in many ways. Bright Memory: Infinite is one of the most impressive examples of what the Steam Deck can do, and it’s also a fun action game. Even though it gets a lot of flak for being short, which is a common problem with first-person shooters, Bright Memory: Infinite is a fast-paced FPS that never slows down. It’s even more impressive that just a few people at FYQD-Studio made it. It’s a great title for the Steam Deck if you want a quick game that you can play in just one sitting.
Tinykin
Tinykin is heavily based on Nintendo’s popular Pikmin series. Its semi-open platforming gameplay is paired with the same strategy and puzzle-solving elements as those games. You play as matchstick-sized Milo, an interstellar traveller who gets lost and ends up in a suburban home stuck in the early 1990s.
The game is full of original ideas and has a beautiful, colourful look. As you collect lots of tinykin while soap skateboarding and bubble gliding through the game’s creatively designed levels, the game is always a pleasure to look at. This is a great game to add to your Steam library, especially if you like simple 3D platform games.
Paradise Killer
Murder mysteries can be some of the most interesting things to read, watch, or play because the detective part of a movie, book, or game can be very interesting, with many motives, suspects, and other things to think about. Paradise Killer takes the best parts of the genre and gets ideas from games that came before it, like Danganronpa, to make a great open-world detective thriller.
With a colourful island, a strange cast of characters, and an open-ended way of investigating that lets players go at their own pace while rewarding exploration, Paradise Killer is the perfect murder-mystery game to curl up with on the Steam Deck as it unfolds like a good noir book, with colours popping on its 1280x800px 7″ screen.
Final Words
Some of the best Indie Games for Steam Deck can be found here. Since it came out, Steam Deck has quickly become the best way to take your favourite hobby with you. And what better games to take with you than the many Indie games that are made with care and look great? In this article, we’ll talk about some of the best independent games for the Steam Deck. Most independent games are great because they use less power from your system, which is great for the Steam Deck.