Who can say what made Ubisoft change their minds on Steam Deck assist for Murderer’s Creed Shadows, the fairly good samurai stealther that beforehand acknowledged an intention to go with out. Maybe a high-ranking govt, visiting household to ask them to a visit on his spare yacht, had his frozen coronary heart melted by the sight of a Naoe-cosplaying granddaughter clutching a Steam Deck OLED in her clearly-too-small-for-it fingers. Maybe.
It really works, is the primary factor. And works nicely – remarkably nicely, really, contemplating not simply the earlier denial and eleventh hour U-turn, however the sport’s excessive PC system necessities and not less than partially necessary ray tracing. This does come at the price of a severely stripped-down high quality settings menu, and also you’ll nonetheless must signal right into a Ubisoft Join account even should you personal Shadows on Steam, however there’s little doubt that its Steam Deck Verified standing is deserved.
Earlier Murderer’s Creedeseses have been solely earned a Playable badge, regardless of assembly Valve’s Verified standards on efficiency, as a result of the necessity for a simultaneous set up and login for Ubisoft’s personal launcher would intervene with its easy operation on Steam; Murderer’s Creed Mirage being the latest instance. Shadows, nevertheless, has a sort of Ubisoft Join Lite constructed proper in, so you’ll be able to simply launch out of your fundamental Steam Deck library as typical, sync your Steam and Ubisoft accounts in-game, and be in your merry stabbing manner. Ideally there’d be no want for all this billions-of-launchers nonsense in any respect, however nonetheless, it’s an enchancment. Alternatively, you should use Desktop Mode and Lutris to put in Ubisoft Join in your Steam Deck, add it as a non-Steam sport, and launch from there.
As soon as up and working, you’ll discover that the graphics choices display screen – the normal first port of name in any sport for the performance-concerned Deck proprietor – provides however a fraction of the settings you’d get on a Home windows desktop. Ubisoft haven’t replied to my queries as as to if that is intentional, however it’s the identical whether or not you’re taking part in on a Steam copy or a Join copy, so I’m guessing it’s.
Complaining about this appears petty, in a manner, as trustworthy work has clearly been put into making Shadows run on the Steam Deck towards the percentages. However I’m not too eager on setting precedents for builders to make separate and stripped down Steam Deck ‘variations’ of their video games; even when the consistency of the Deck’s {hardware} makes it simpler to plan console-style ‘mounted’ settings, Shadows itself demonstrates that numerous granular, particular person settings can usually be raised from the bottom to highest with out impacting efficiency. There’s no readily obvious profit to taking that flexibility away.
That mentioned, it’s finally higher to have a decent-running sport with few choices than to have an unplayable sport with masses. Murderer’s Creed Shadows is the previous. These are the settings I want utilizing, which admittedly are mainly simply the defaults, save for the upscaler being specified as FSR relatively than being left on Auto.
Murderer’s Creed Shadows Steam Deck settings
- Raytraced world illumination: Diffuse Hideout Solely
- Upscaler sort: AMD FSR
- Minimal dynamic decision: 25%
- Most dynamic decision: 75%
- Sharpen energy: 0.25
- Body technology: Off
These preserve Shadows working, for probably the most half, at an impressively constant 30fps. There are some momentary dips beneath, however no sustained drops or stuttering, even in busy settlements or – most shocking of all – the Hideout. This hub space is the one a part of the sport that received’t allow you to disable ray tracing fully, however credit score the place it’s due: Ubisoft’s in-house, software-based RT results aren’t anyplace close to as demanding as standard, hardware-based ray tracing. Once more, you may get some tiny drops, however Shadows is as playable on the Steam Deck right here as it’s anyplace else on the map.
I additionally haven’t had any issues with undersized textual content or awkward controls, so it fits the Deck’s exterior {hardware} as nicely. These controls are additionally partly why I’ve left body technology off. See, you’ll be able to allow FSR 3 body gen for a touch of additional smoothness, with boosted framerates reaching 45fps at instances. Sadly, it could possibly additionally drop to round 33-34fps when the display screen will get busy, nullifying the profit, whereas swamping management responsivity below lashings of enter lag. Most switches and toggles that may grant a 50% velocity improve are value flicking not less than as soon as, however personally I’d relatively have a extra constant 30fps with out that added sluggishness.
At the very least all the brand new tech in Shadows hasn’t critically intensified its drain on the Steam Deck’s battery life. Taking part in on the Ubisoft Join model, with display screen brightness and speaker quantity each at 50%, Shadows ran my unique LCD Deck from full to flat in 1h 22m, only a single minute lower than Mirage did. I believe that may very well be improved, too, similar to by dropping the show’s refresh charge to 40Hz – you received’t be needing greater than thirty of those hertz anyway.
Sub-90 minutes is, after all, on the decrease finish of Deck longevity scale in any case. However it’s par for the course the place giga-fidelity AAA video games are involved, and that’s one nook of PC gaming that’s proving much less in Steam Deck compatibility with each passing yr. Kudos to Murderer’s Creed Shadows, then, for making the hassle.
