If it’s the bug I’m thinking of, you can get around it by disabling hardware acceleration for web views in the desktop client.

Still annoying though.

I would recommend grabbing this bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/safe-in-our-world-charity-bundle-2025 It’s got a kinda weird mix of games, but a lot of the games are great and several are fantastic for what you’re asking. Of particular note:

Edit: unfortunately that bundle is out of stock, and I just realized it. Sorry. My recommendation for the following games is still valid though:

• Little Kitty Big City - play as a cat doing cat things and exploring a japanese city. Very chill, fun animal characters, real fun experience.
• Thank Goodness You’re Here - very well animated adventures in a british town. Less of a game and more of an experience, but very enjoyable.

Assuming it’s the same as It Takes Two, yes, coop only.

You only need one copy for two people though. There’s a free friend pass to let someone else play with you online, or you can play split screen with someone local.

Yeah I agree. Far too many games have anti-cheat when it’s not really needed.

I’m also of the belief that anti-cheat should always be optional, letting people play with friends with it disabled.

I’ve never heard of GuardIT anticheat before, no idea if it’s linux compatible or not.

Others have already answered most of this, but I’ll add my piece:

Gnome on SteamOS

It’s possible, but every steamOS update will wipe it. There are scripts out there to automate reinstalling gnome after every system update. Still, Bazzite would be the easier long term option. I personally prefer Gnome as well, but I’ve actually been fine with KDE on my deck. I’m not frequently docking my deck and using it as a PC though.

Easy deck upgrades

You can very easily replace the SSD, backplate, thumbsticks, fans (some of the LCD models have a whiny fan) and rear buttons. Replacing the front buttons takes more disassembly but isn’t too bad afaik. Replacing the front plate or the screen requires separating the screen from the frontplate with heat, which is where a lot of people become uncomfortable.

Many replacements and alternative parts exist. You can get transparent or multicolor shells, shells that claim to offer better cooling (which I’m skeptical of tbh), hall effect joysticks, extra clicky button assemblies, alternative back button designs, buttons with different materials and textures, and higher resolution or OLED screen upgrades for the LCD models.

Other stuff

If you primarily play on PS5, be sure to check out Chiaki4Deck as it will let you stream your PS5 to your deck. If you get the OLED model it will even support the PS5’s HDR, which is a benefit you don’t get with the official PS Portal device.

Valve is private. That fact alone is neither inherently good, nor bad.

I’m leaning towards being a public company is inherently bad, so being a private company is preferable as the primary “not bad” option.

My main experiences with public companies lately is that they prioritize quarterly and yearly profits over long term health of the company and a good relationship with their customers. I don’t think that approach will be healthy for the company long term, and hurts consumers short term.

Privately owned companies can be just as shitty as publicly owned companies, but they’re not required to put short term shareholder profits first. The well run ones (especially family run ones) are more likely to prioritize building a good reputation and consumer loyalty, which is how you get companies that don’t suck to interact with.

AI upscaling is cool when it lets older and weaker hardware play modern games, but I don’t like the wave of modern poorly optimized games that use it as a crutch to be playable at all.

It’s mostly UE5 games, but now we also have RE engine performing terribly on MH Wilds. There’s also games like Indiana Jones that now have mandatory ray tracing for all the lighting.

Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense for repairs when you can buy a new 256GB for just $50.

The stock comes and goes, but you can also buy the 64GB refurbished model for $279 as well.

When ifixit originally leaked repair part prices, they actually did have a motherboard listed as a replacement part that was intended to be purchasable. However, it was priced at $350, which obviously isn’t worth it compared to the price of a full deck (especially when on sale).

It’s possible they could sell it for cheaper now that the Deck’s production volume is higher, but basically with the normal Deck’s being originally priced to sell at a loss, major repair parts like the motherboard cost too much individually to be worth buying at standard price + ifixit markup.