Best Games for a Long Flight: Steam Deck and Switch 2 (2026)
The games that actually suit a long flight: offline, easy on the battery, and satisfying in 20-minute bursts. What to load on a Steam Deck or Switch 2 before you fly, and what to leave at home.
By Sam Okafor
Updated: 2026-05-21
The best flight games aren’t the best games. They’re the ones that sip battery, work fully offline, and reward a 20-minute burst between the drinks trolley and the next nap. The blockbuster 3D game you’ve been meaning to start is the wrong call on a plane: it’ll drain a Steam Deck in a couple of hours, and you can’t reliably charge mid-flight in 2026. Load the right things before you leave Wi-Fi and a long-haul flight flies by.
Here’s what to put on the device, grouped by how they actually play at 38,000 feet.
Why these and not “best games”
Three things decide whether a game suits a flight, and none of them is how good it is:
- Offline. It has to work in airplane mode with no online check-in. Single-player games are safe; anything that phones home isn’t.
- Battery. 2D and stylised games sip power; demanding 3D games guzzle it. On a handheld with a few hours of charge and no top-up at your seat, that’s the difference between landing mid-game and landing on a dead battery.
- Session shape. A game you can pick up, play for twenty minutes, and put down beats one that needs an hour to get going.
Almost everything below is also a small download, so it won’t eat your storage before the trip. (The couple of heavier ones are flagged.)
Roguelikes and run-based games (the perfect flight pick)
These are built for exactly this: a single run is 20–40 minutes, they’re offline, and most are light on the battery.
- Hades and Hades II: fast, gorgeous, endlessly replayable runs. The best all-round flight game on either device.
- Dead Cells: tight, quick runs; pure pick-up-and-play.
- Slay the Spire and Balatro: turn-based card runs that barely touch the battery and are dangerously moreish.
- Vampire Survivors: runs are short, the download is tiny, and it sips power.
If you load only one category, make it this one.
Turn-based and strategy (pause anywhere)
No reflexes required, easy to stop and start, and gentle on the battery.
- Into the Breach: bite-sized tactical puzzles, ideal in short bursts.
- The Battle of Polytopia: quick 4X matches, tiny download.
- Civilization VI comes with a caveat: it’s brilliant offline and pauses anywhere, but a session pulls you in for far longer than twenty minutes, and it works the battery harder than the others here. Great for a long leg if you’re charged up.
Cosy and sim
For when you want to wind down rather than win.
- Stardew Valley: the definitive flight comfort game. Offline, light, and you can genuinely play a single in-game day in a spare ten minutes.
Story games that travel well
Low-drain because they’re text- and 2D-led, and absorbing enough to swallow a long leg.
- Disco Elysium: almost no battery cost for how much game it is; perfect if you’d rather read and decide than react.
- Hollow Knight: 2D, atmospheric, and easy on the battery, though boss fights ask for steady hands on a tray table.
A word on battery and downloads
Two habits make all of this work. First, drop the screen brightness and cap the frame rate before you board; the screen is the biggest drain, and a 2D game doesn’t need 90fps. Second, and the one that ruins flights: download everything before you leave Wi-Fi. Plane Wi-Fi is slow, paid, or absent, so anything not already on the device is dead weight. On a Steam Deck, set the games to play offline so no launcher demands a check-in. The full power-and-packing routine is in the long-haul flight guide — and for the charging side of the trip, the portable charger guide covers what to pack.
Where to buy
Most of these go on sale constantly and cost little to begin with. Authorised key sites like Green Man Gaming often beat the store price, and Fanatical bundles are a cheap way to fill a flight library in one go.