Thought I’d have a little fun today and list some of my favorite boot videos for the Deck. Thanks to Ashtaka from LGC’s Discord for the suggestion.

Please note:

  1. These picks aren’t sorted in any particular order
  2. Obviously, my opinion on these is subjective. Your favorites will likely differ from mine. I ask that everyone respect each other’s favorites
  3. At the time of writing this, there’s 47 pages worth of boot videos on Steam Deck Repo. I’m not going to view every single one for the sake of picking my top 10

1. Valve GabeCube⌗

As someone who is personally fond of the GameCube and the legendary titles that came with it, this one hits home. I like how it’s a little more personalized for the Deck with the “Valve GabeCube” text. It would have been even better if the person who made this customized the way in which the cubes move to make it more akin to the shape of the Deck. And change the color to dark gray, or even white. But who knows, I might just polish up my Blender skills and make it myself.

2. Love, Death & Robots⌗

Nice, minimalistic intro. Flat icon theme suits it well. The transitions are decent as well.

3. Steam Neon Lights⌗

Graphics and colors look very fancy. The eerie Valve theme also capitalizes on making this more personal for the Deck.

4. Steam Deck Pixar Style⌗

I love this. Though the Deck has its’ separate use cases from the Switch, I enjoy seeing the Switch get squashed here. The Deck is the total opposite of the Switch when it comes to customization and open-ness, and nothing exemplifies this more than this animation.

5. “The Matrix” - Refined Definitive Edition “By Valve”⌗

It’s awesome to see people go as far as this to make a custom boot video. It does use the Matrix theme, but customized specifically for the Deck. I also like towards the end where it has the “skeleton” frame for the Deck UI. Makes the transition less jarring.

6. Steam Deck Boot Animation with Menu, Version 2⌗

This is nice, short, and to the point. Just takes the default boot animation, makes it faster, and makes the transition to the Deck UI more easy on the eyes.

7. Simple HUD Boot Screen⌗

Despite the name, the design here looks very sophisticated. It prominently features the Steam logo, then transitions to “Steam Deck – Powered by SteamOS”. Very nice!

8. Kill Switch⌗

Another perfect example where the Switch gets roasted. I feel like the last two seconds of the animation could have been trimmed off though, since there’s nothing there.

9. PlayStation 3 Startup⌗

I like this. The only feedback I can give here is to change the backdrop color to something more suitable for the Deck, like a dark gray.

10. GBA-Styled Startup – Pixelated and Non-Pixelated⌗

Similar to the GameCube, the Game Boy Advance was another fond childhood memory of mine. I just can’t determine whether I prefer the pixelated version over the non-pixelated or vice versa. I think the pixelated suits the classic sound more, but at the same time the non-pixelated one is a more modern take, which is good for the Deck. Maybe you can let me know in the comments what you would prefer. Better yet, I’ll probably run a poll on Mastodon and you can cast your vote there.

Only other thing about this is the glaring white background. I don’t like it. It should have a darker theme so it’s not so piercing to my eyes.

A year or two from now I may come back to this and revise my picks based on what’s new in the Deck Repo.

An easy way of getting these boot videos for your Deck is by installing and using the Steam Deck Repo Manager. You can also use the Animation Changer plugin for Decky Loader. If you want to have more than one startup animation and randomize what get’s played, you can refer to my guide.

Let me know what your favorite videos are!