The Steam Deck is a versatile piece of machinery, bridging the gap between PC and console gaming in ways I never imagined before its arrival. The handheld regularly pulls above its weight in running modern games, but it’s starting to show its age. Valve has yet to officially announce a successor, but plenty of must-have features would put the Steam Deck 2 on par with current-gen consoles.
Some of these features would be obvious iterative improvements, but there are plenty of tricks Valve could learn from the major console manufacturers to push handheld gaming to new heights.
7Longer Battery Life
There’s no doubt that the original Steam Deck’s biggest weakness is its measly battery life. Anyone who has tried to run PC ports of AAA games knows they’ll be lucky to get 90 minutes of play time on the Deck. The Steam Deck OLED revision had some improvements, but it’s still not enough to sustain a prolonged gaming binge session.
The current Steam Deck OLED includes a 6470 mAh battery, which is still better than the 5220 mAh battery in Nintendo’s upcoming Switch 2. Generally speaking, Steam Deck’s effective battery life is usually higher than its competitors due to its extensive optimizations by Valve and SteamOS’ lower power draw compared to Windows.
However, I know that next-gen games tapping into the full power of the PlayStation and Xbox consoles require more power to drive them. Whether Valve opts for including a higher capacity battery or improved optimizations on a system-level remains to be seen, but either way, a longer-lasting Steam Deck 2 would be a welcome sight.
6Better Upscaling
Both the regular and the OLED Steam Deck have a display resolution of 1280x800, which looks pretty sharp for a handheld. However, most new titles can barely run at that native resolution on the Deck, and players have to resort to upscaling techniques. Using features like AMD’s FSR, games are rendered at a lower resolution, often close to as low as 540p, and then upscaled to the display resolution. This results in a significant performance boost, but can result in a mangled image where you can barely make out the details in a scene.
The original Steam Deck didn’t have dedicated hardware for machine learning-accelerated functions, like NVIDIA’s DLSS upscaling, which results in a finely resolved image. That’s what Nintendo’s upcoming handheld will use, which is why developers can get away with much lower internal resolution targets. It’s also similar to the PS5 Pro’s PSSR upscaling, which uses machine learning to deliver a major performance and image quality boost over FSR.
It’s abundantly clear that the future of PC gaming will rely on smarter upscaling techniques over brute force. Valve needs to include machine learning hardware support or native implementation of AMD’s FSR 4, which includes generational improvement to the image quality.
5Quick Resume
One of the most praised aspects of the Xbox Series consoles is Quick Resume, a feature that lets players suspend multiple games at once and resume their state when booting a title. With it, Xbox players seldom have to sit through the main menu and loading screens to get into the game. That seems like the kind of feature that would be perfect for a handheld device.
While the Steam Deck lets you suspend and resume one game, it’d be great to extend this to multiple games. After all, the entire point of the Steam Deck is its ease of use and instantaneous pick-up-and-play nature.
4Improved Cloud Gaming Support
Microsoft wants to ship Xbox Game Pass on every device it possibly can, and the fact that it hasn’t debuted on Steam directly is surprising. Steam already supports subscriptions from major publishers, as seen with EA Play, so what’s the holdup?
Relatedly, Xbox Cloud Gaming could help Steam Deck users play games that aren’t a great experience locally on the handheld—like how NVIDIA is gearing up to offer its own cloud gaming service, GeForce Now, on the Steam Deck. Valve already supports remote game streaming on the Deck, but additional native integration with all major console manufacturers' cloud gaming services would be ideal.
3A 120 Hz Refresh Rate Display
Following the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2, all current-generation consoles will support 120fps gameplay. In partnership with a higher refresh rate, this offers a smoother gaming experience. New games typically offer a “Balanced” graphical mode, which targets a 40fps output while running inside a 120Hz container, so each frame is evenly distributed for a smooth experience.
Technically, the Steam Deck OLED can output 40fps gameplay perfectly fine thanks to its 90Hz VRR display. Still, a proper 120Hz display would guarantee evenly distributed frames without requiring users to tinker with the handheld’s settings. Developers already offer a Steam Deck-optimized performance profile for Deck-verified games, and a 120Hz display could pave the way for a “Balanced” profile on these games as well.
2More USB-C Ports
The originalSteam Deck has plenty of useful accessories, but the single USB-C port on the device means you usually have to choose between using and charging it, so I would like at least another USB-C port on the successor. Also, having a second USB-C port lets you orient the device whichever way you want.
The Steam Deck has been a gift to many modders who have figured out different ways to use the handheld, includingusing the Deck as a Linux PC, so why not expand the successor’s usability with more ports? For those who want to travel light, a second USB-C port can let them connect the device to a monitor without needingbulky Deck docks.
1Official Plugins for Third-Party Apps
You can use Discord on the Steam Deck, but the process isn’t exactly as easy as installing a game from the Steam store. There are plenty of ways to use third-party tools on the Deck, but most aren’t beginner-friendly and require booting into the desktop mode. A new Steam Deck should be more open, allowing developers to integrate their apps directly with SteamOS.
We’ve already seen how PlayStation and Xbox have integrated Discord on their consoles hassle-free, so why can’t Valve do the same? After all, many apps such asDiscord will soon be integrated into more games.
If you’d rather not wait for the next Steam Deck, aSwitch 2 might be a better choice of handheldcompared to the original Deck. Regardless of how long Valve takes to launch its next handheld, I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait, despite whatever features it ships with.
