The Steam Deck makes PlayStation’s biggest games portable

Image: Sony

Sony has stopped making portable gaming devices, but Valve's Steam Deck is an excellent way to play PS4 games on the go. God of War is one of the big first-party titles that are now available on PC. Death Stranding and Final Fantasy VII Remaking Intergrade are verified on the PS4. The new Spider-Man game, out this week, is one of the best examples of how the steam deck is becoming the new portable console.

Everything that made Spider-Man one of the best superhero games of all time is still here, even though I only played a few hours. You can easily traverse New York City by using the swinging. The city has a lot of secrets to find and criminals to get rid of. I was surprised to see myself again in the story.

I mostly completed the Spider-Man story on PS4 as quickly as possible. I want to know what happened next. I am climbing every building in New York City in order to find the secret to the city. I know a lot about the main story. Some new story scenarios are included in the Spider-Man DLC packs. Making a game portable means I am more likely to play it in bite-sized chunks and I have found myself using a few minutes here and there to fix police antennas.

The portable nature of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild made it a more personal experience for me. It's easier to find my own path on a portable device instead of feeling like I'm wasting valuable TV time searching the farthest corner of the map for a hidden secret. Tracking down every shrine was something that was done in the video game. In Spider-Man, it is necessary to scale another building to find backpacks that are unlocked.

Spider-Man looks worse on medium settings than it did on PS4 and I think it's because of that. Even on very high settings, the option to trace is grayed out for me. While in New York City, the frame rate is between 30 and 60 frames per second. The game kicks on the steam deck's noisy fan, which can get annoying, but none of those are big issues for me.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

I think I will play Spider-Man on PC for the first time when it arrives this fall, because I am enjoying playing Spider-Man on Steam Deck so much. While it was a signature PS5 title, it also came to PS4 the same day, where it doesn't look as good as the original. Given that Spider-Man was verified more than a week before its official release, I am pretty sure that Miles Morales will work on the PC.

I am not the first to suggest that the Steam Deck could be a spiritual successor to the PS Vita, but I am starting to think that it could be better. Sony struggled to get developers to make games for the platform, as well as its own first-party support. The first two games to arrive on the handheld were Sony games, and they are remembered by a lot of people. Three years after the release of the handheld, Sony abandoned it without giving it a second thought.

Sony has already brought a number of flagship exclusive games from its home console to a handheld device. Sony seems to be shortening the window for future titles even though the games are available now.

The new Spider-Man will be released this fall. The Legacy of Thieves collection was released in January. The remake of The Last of Us is in the works and will be released in September. Returnal, a PS5 exclusive, may be brought to PC.

Sony doesn't know if those will support steam deck. Considering the company's current lineup of Steam Deck-verified games, and the public plans to invest heavily in PC games, the lineup of Sony titles that work on Valve's handheld gaming PC should get even better.

We will be in for a treat if the ports are as good as Spider-Man. If you excuse me, I need to find a new backpack.

On August 12th, the PC version of Spider-Man will be released. You can buy it on either store.