Crashlands 2
Crashlands 2 is about smashing everything in sight, collecting thousands of resources, and crafting them all into armour, weapons and furniture. I bought this instantly as I really enjoyed the first one and it's a great candidate for the Steam Deck. I hadn't realised until I looked back at the images of Crashlands 1 how far this game has come; it's really leaps ahead of it's predecessor. Collect everything, do loads of quests, raise pets and build a base. Story and writing are excellent, combat is pretty good - resource gathering is grindy.
Pros
- The dialogue is actually entertaining
- There are NPCs that move in with you. They have things they ask for like specific furniture or room sizes etc which increases their research speed
- NPCs research things for you; new recipes, more loot etc
- There are lots of different workstation types
- You find eggs in the world which you can hatch into combat pets. Like the NPCs, they also have requirements for their room while they hatch
- So. Many. Quests. The game is really quite long (finished in 40 hours) - and I found the quests and dialogue interesting throughout
- There are dozens of different items and materials to build your base out of
- There are 6 different kinds equipment (electric, void, poison etc) which you can mix and match, and have set bonuses to fit your playstyle
- Plants and different species interact with each other, often allowing you to get them to fight each other (if you have the patience and don't just smash them all)
- The Void storyline is so good.
Cons
- Extremely grindy for materials. It gets worse as the game goes on - in the later areas you need hundreds of materials to build some of the items
- Regularly stutters or hits 45fps on the Steam Deck, which is annoying considering how simple it is. This did become less noticeable over time
- Building things on the Deck is pretty annoying. The cursor moves too quickly and the game is on a diagonal grid, which made doing any kind of base building difficult
- Using Right Trigger for everything instead of A is weird
- You can’t view your inventory, which is mind boggling for a game primarily about collecting loads of resources. The only way I can know if I have enough of something is by pinning a recipe. And I can only pin a recipe if I'm at my main base, because otherwise you can't see the crafting menu
- Movement speed is too slow. It gets slightly better over time, but still feels slow
- There are skill points scattered throughout the map to upgrade your suit's skills - although they usually feel pretty lacklustre like "+10% fishing" or "+6% strength"