Valve: "Elden Ring" is the most popular game on the Steam Deck

Valve has published a new list of the most popular games on its mobile PC Steam Deck. According to the list, "Baldur's Gate 3", "Elden Ring" and "Stardew Valley" were the most popular games among Steam Deck owners last year. However, the list also provides information about current popularity.

If you limit the search to the past month, "Baldur's Gate 3" slips down to 5th place – behind "Elden Ring" in 1st place, "Stardew Valley" in 2nd place, "Hades 2" in 3rd place and the roguelike card game "Balatro" in 4th place.

Inscrutable metrics

It is not yet clear how the statistics on which the ranking is based work. In German, Valve calls the statistic "most-played games", while in the original English version it is "top-played games". However, Valve told The Verge that this metric does not compare the number of hours played, but rather the number of players. Valve also considers how often a game is one of the most-played titles for individual Steam Deck users. In this way, Valve wants to get an impression of whether a game is currently trending with as many people as possible. "The metric is a combination of unique users and interest," Valve told The Verge.

This opaque methodology makes it difficult to evaluate the list objectively. Valve calculates its "most played games" on the entire platform based solely on the number of players, which makes comparisons even more difficult. What is noticeable, however, is that multiplayer titles such as "Counter-Strike 2", "Dota 2" and "PUBG" routinely top the Steam list, but are significantly less popular on the Steam Deck. Only "Counter-Strike 2" makes it into the top 100, which is probably since the three games are designed for mouse and keyboard. In addition, as a mobile console, the Steam Deck is more suitable for single-player titles.

"Hades" in the ranking twice

A few more findings from the latest Steam Deck ranking

• All games in the top 10 are verified for Steam Deck. The top non-verified games are "GTA 5" and "Red Dead Redemption 2", both of which are marked as "playable".
• In 27th place is the PC port of "Ghost of Tsushima 2", a game that is "unsupported" on the Steam Deck. It is not known why the Sony game is shown as unsupported - apparently it can be played on the Steam Deck.
• Both "Hades" and "Hades 2" are in the top 10, and both games are considered well suited for the deck due to their low system requirements, gamepad controls and replayable gameplay.
• "Diablo 4" was brought to Steam last year after it was already available on Battle.net. Only the Steam version can be played on the deck without much effort – with 8th place in the ranking, the Steam version is likely to have been worthwhile for Valve.
• "Fallout 4" is also one of the "most played" titles on the Steam Deck. This means that the role-playing game is probably still benefiting from the hype surrounding the Amazon series.

(dahe)