3 best Steam games to download first – on Steam Deck and Legion Go S
PC handhelds have changed the game, and these three great are perfect fits for portable play
It’s hard to believe how far handheld gaming has come in such a short space of time. It really wasn’t that long ago that the idea of playing a console or desktop-quality game on something you hold in your hands was the stuff of daydreams, but these days gamers expect to be able to take their libraries everywhere.
PC handhelds have been growing in popularity since the arrival of the Steam Deck in 2022, which revolutionised the space with its dedicated gaming-focused operating system. SteamOS is so good that rival manufacturers are now putting out devices that offer consumers a chance to ditch Windows in favour of the operating system, such as the equally excellent Lenovo Legion Go S.
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Half-Life 2
As far as I’m concerned, no SteamOS-toting handheld’s library is complete without Half-Life 2. It’s the most important game Valve has ever made and there's no surprise that it runs brilliantly on the company's own operating system.
Play through Gordon Freeman’s Earth-liberating mission on Steam Deck and you can take advantage of all of the device’s features, including the gyroscope and touchpads for precise aiming. And while Valve’s FPS sequel is now a very old game, it still looks great on a smaller display.
Rumours of Half-Life 3's imminent arrival won’t go away, so now is the perfect time to either discover why so many people want it to happen, or remind yourself why you should too.
Megabonk
Many games have tried to ape what Poncle achieved with Vampire Survivors, and most have failed. But last year’s excellently named Megabonk was a compelling evolution of the bullet hell roguelite formula.
Conceptually, Megabonk is very similar to Vampire Survivors. You’re still trying to survive increasingly large waves of enemies in procedurally generated maps with automated attacks. But Megabonk’s rudimentary 3D graphics make it, as far as I’m concerned, that bit more fun to play. It definitely helps that one of the characters you unlock early in the game is a skateboarding skeleton.
Megabonk is slightly more processor-intensive than Vampire Survivors, which would likely have run on a calculator, but the likes of the Steam Deck and Legion Go S have no problem with it. Pick-up-and-play experiences like this are tailor-made for handheld devices.
Dispatch
It’s arguably more of an interactive TV show than a game, but Dispatch was one of my 2025 highlights, and having it on the go means you can make your way through this episodic superhero workplace comedy wherever you are.
The debut project comes from a new studio made up of ex-Telltale developers, so has some quality adventure chops. You play as Robert Robertson III, once known as the superhero Mecha Man, but now working a steady(ish) 9-5 as a dispatcher for other dysfunctional heroes.
Dispatch flits between being a genuinely great adult animated show in which you get to decide how Robert interacts with his co-workers (and live with the consequences), and more traditionally gamey bits that have you deciding which heroes to send out on various jobs, levelling them up as you go.
The latter sections are undoubtedly where Dispatch is at its weakest, but the writing is so funny and the ragtag cast so well drawn that it’s easy to overlook the game’s shortcomings.
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