I’ve been interested in picking one up in the sale, but between the controls and newer games having high CPU demands, it seems like a stretch to get a comfortable experience in handheld. Something with either built-in controller support, a slower pace or a good community layout would be perfect.
Halo Wars. It’s designed for gamepad and the campaign is pretty decent. Co op works well too.
This was exactly my thought. Probably no better game than Halo Wars, just unfortunately no Halo Wars 2 because it’s still not on Steam.
Just picked it up, thanks. Shame about Halo Wars 2, hopefully it gets added to Steam in the future.
Tooth and Tail works well on a controller. It’s a simplified RTS and may or may not tickle your fancy, but it will play well. See some competitive play at https://youtu.be/CMGaSlUOX-0
Thanks for this! That competitive gameplay was fun to watch. Turns out I already have it in my steam library too, definitely going to give it a try.
mentioned in another comment, but Halo Wars is fantastic on the Deck. also, Command and Conquer Remastered plays well with some controller configuration.
What style of RTS are you looking for? City Skylines and Transport Fever 2 show up under Strategy for Steam Deck verified games, but I personally wouldn’t consider them a traditional RTS (although they’re both very entertaining to me).
Those are both objectively not RTS games.
I mean it’s strategy that happens in real time? Surely they are a kind of RTS?
You could give wartales a look, great game that I’ve sunk a lot of hours into. To be fair though I play on a linux desktop not steam deal but close enough.
This has just reminded me of the old Aliens vs Predator rts on Xbox. I wonder if it’s possible to emulate it? I might have a go, I remember enjoying it back in the day.