This is less of a “how can I do this” question and more of a “would it be theoretically possible for Valve to make this change” thought experiment.

The process of waking the deck back up in the middle of a game can be iffy depending on the title. When the Steam Deck wakes up now it jumps right back into the game immediately but still needs a bit to reconnect to WiFi (if that works at all) and also there’s a delay on the controls waking up for some reason too. For a game like Monster Hunter World (which can’t be paused) this can lead to potentially taking hits from whatever you’re fighting before being able to move and react. You’re also dumped into an offline mode which is annoying but at least handled gracefully.

Other games, like the new Pinball FX that inspired this post, handle this far worse. When the Deck wakes up the game doesn’t detect a network connection since WiFi hasn’t connected yet. It then for some reason can’t reconnect and sometimes just throws a fit and crashes out as a result.

So would it be possible and/or preferable for things like controls and internet on the Deck to be fully operational before the game state resumes? For me it feels like it might smooth out one of the jankier interactions that remains with the Steam Deck.