The Steam Deck’s killer app isn’t the game you’d expect

digitaltrends.com:

When I first heard about the Steam Deck, my brain went big. I started imagining all the giant AAA games I’d be able to play on the go once I had a portable computer. When I got my unit, I immediately downloaded Elden Ring and fired up my save file. That’s something my Nintendo Switch couldn’t do.

While it’s been thrilling to fire up PS4-quality games on the subway, those aren’t the titles I’ve been playing the most on my Steam Deck. Instead, my go-to game has been comparatively modest. For me, the early access indie hit Vampire Survivors is the closest thing the system has to a killer app, showcasing the true utility of the Steam Deck.

Vampire Survivors is a simple game. The gothic 8-bit game merely asks players to survive a constant wave of enemies for 30 minutes. They’ll start with a basic weapon that auto-attacks and gain more abilities every time they level up. Players move around to dodge enemies, but otherwise, they’re simply building the perfect monster-slaying machine. At the start of a run, players are slowly slashing a few enemies with a whip. By the end, the screen is filled with magic spells and enemies, pushing the frame rate to its limits.

When I first saw the game in January, it had my curiosity, but I didn’t want to play it yet. Its 30-minute runs made it feel like the perfect commuter game, but not one I’d want to sit down and play at my desk. Unfortunately, the game was only on PC as an early access game. It likely wouldn’t come to Switch until its 1.0 release, if it did at all. It seemed like a game that was doomed to fall under my radar simply due to circumstance.

When I got my Steam Deck, Vampire Survivors wasn’t initially on my mind. But as I was coming up with a list of games I could test on it, it