Handheld gaming PCs are versatile little devices. They’re designed to let you game on the go, but these are full PCs underneath the customized gaming-center overlays, whether you’re running SteamOS or Windows 11. So you can also use a handheld gaming PC as your home server, turn it into a desktop or laptop replacement, or even use it as a thin client for your home lab.
No matter what side-use you’ve found for your handheld gaming PC, if you’ve ever spent much time using it for gaming one thing becomes clear almost immediately: handhelds are at their best when used to play indie titles and retro games, not high-budget, poorly optimized PC titles.
Indie games run better on handhelds
Just because you can play Monster Hunter, doesn’t mean you should
Sure, you can run the latest PC games on your handheld. There’s nothing stopping you from booting up Cyberpunk 2077 or Monster Hunter Wilds on your handheld PC. But even if you’ve got the latest and greatest in handheld hardware, intensive games like Monster Hunter just don’t play well with handheld APUs. Even the Lenovo Legion Go 2, sporting AMD’s most powerful handheld APU, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, struggles to keep a stable frame rate in Monster Hunter and Cyberpunk.
My gaming experience was far better and smoother opting for games like Genshin Impact or Baldur’s Gate III on the Legion Go 2, but what really sold me on the handheld-to-indie pipeline was playing Persona 4 Golden on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally. While Persona 4 isn’t exactly an indie game, it is a proper retro title these days, and it was designed for consoles first, so the controls are highly optimized for a handheld gaming PC, and since it was initially developed in the PS2 era, even the remastered version performs like a dream on the Xbox Ally’s 4-core APU.
Indie and retro titles are better for short-burst gaming
Which is where handhelds really shine
Not all indie games are rogue-like, but most indie games tend to be a lot shorter than their high-budget, AAA counterparts. Cutscenes are shorter if they exist at all, and your gameplay sessions can often be measured in minutes rather than hours, though this isn’t always the case.
Handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck are optimized for short gaming sessions, particularly with how the Steam Deck utilizes its sleep function. Since handhelds have limited battery and tend to be used for on-the-go gaming, playing in short bursts is the primary intended use of a handheld. So indie titles just make sense.
Most high-budget games are designed for longer play sessions, where indie titles are often designed for shorter play sessions, which work better with the handheld’s limited battery life. Plus, playing games that don’t stress the hardware like Hollow Knight or Genshin Impact can also get you better battery life, in addition to better performance and a better hardware comfort to gameplay session ratio.
Indie and retro games are more comfortable to play
Handheld ergonomics are still far from perfect
Indie titles are often more limited in terms of combat complexity and the combat is often optimized for fewer controls, which works incredibly well with the handheld form factor. Even my beloved Final Fantasy XIV can be a little dicey on handhelds since the controls are a bit too involved to work comfortably with an 8-inch gaming handheld.
But a game with simpler controls, like Hollow Knight: Silksong or Hades, just plays better. You’re not stretching your fingers out of their joints to hit the triggers or complaining about the high bumper placement when playing a game that uses maybe three buttons 90% of the time.
While the Asus ROG Xbox Ally has significantly better ergonomics than other, bulkier handhelds like the Legion Go 2 or MSI Claw 8 AI+, it’s still far from perfect, especially for games that require a lot of bumper and trigger use. So playing Persona 4 Golden was far more comfortable than booting up Final Fantasy XIV.
Handhelds are kind of silly devices anyway
So playing silly games just has the right vibe
Handheld gaming PCs are just a little silly, no matter how you look at them. They’re 7-8-inch tablets with attached controllers, and rather than run a limited operating system, many of them run the full Windows 11 experience. While SteamOS is the superior operating system for handheld gaming PCs, that doesn’t change the fact that only two handhelds ship with SteamOS pre-installed. So all other handhelds so far have been running Windows 11, which is admittedly not the best choice for such limited hardware.
But that hardware/software mismatch means that not only do indie games perform better on handhelds, they also match the vibe better.
After all, the Steam Deck is nothing more than a Linux version of the Nintendo Switch. And while, sure, you can play Cyberpunk 2077 on the Nintendo Switch 2, it’s not a terribly pleasant experience. The Switch and its successor are built for quirky Nintendo games and that’s where they really feel at home. So it’s no surprise that the PC version is a little similar.
It just makes more sense to pair your silly little pocket PC with a silly, low-intensity game like Hades rather than something that will fry your battery in 15 minutes like Cyberpunk 2077. And there’s nothing wrong with silly gaming. It’s the ideal way to deal with a long work commute, after all.
The ROG Xbox Ally proves handhelds are best paired with indie games, not AAA titles
