Who can say what made Ubisoft change their minds on Steam Deck assist for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the pretty good samurai stealther that beforehand said an intention to go with out. Maybe a high-ranking government, 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 arms. Maybe.
It really works, is the primary factor. And works properly – remarkably properly, really, contemplating not simply the earlier denial and eleventh hour U-turn, however the sport’s high PC system requirements and at least partially mandatory ray tracing. This does come at the price of a severely stripped-down high quality settings menu, and also you’ll nonetheless have to signal right into a Ubisoft Join account even for those who personal Shadows on Steam, however there’s little question 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 clean operation on Steam; Assassin’s Creed Mirage being the latest instance. Shadows, nonetheless, has a sort of Ubisoft Join Lite constructed proper in, so you possibly can simply launch out of your important Steam Deck library as standard, sync your Steam and Ubisoft accounts in-game, and be in your merry stabbing method. Ideally there’d be no want for all this billions-of-launchers nonsense in any respect, however nonetheless, it’s an enchancment. Alternatively, you need to 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 – gives 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 enjoying on a Steam copy or a Join copy, so I’m guessing it’s.
Complaining about this appears petty, in a method, 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 a variety of 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 stated, it’s finally higher to have a decent-running sport with few choices than to have an unplayable sport with hundreds. Murderer’s Creed Shadows is the previous. These are the settings I want utilizing, which admittedly are principally 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 hold 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 wherever close to as demanding as typical, hardware-based ray tracing. Once more, you would possibly get some tiny drops, however Shadows is as playable on the Steam Deck right here as it’s wherever 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 properly. These controls are additionally partly why I’ve left body technology off. See, you possibly can allow FSR 3 body gen for a splash of additional smoothness, with boosted framerates reaching 45fps at instances. Sadly, it could actually additionally drop to round 33-34fps when the display screen will get busy, nullifying the profit, whereas swamping management responsivity beneath lashings of enter lag. Most switches and toggles that may grant a 50% velocity improve are price flicking a minimum of as soon as, however personally I’d relatively have a extra constant 30fps with out that added sluggishness.
At the least all the brand new tech in Shadows hasn’t severely 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 think that could possibly be improved, too, reminiscent of by dropping the show’s refresh price 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. Nevertheless 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 less interested in Steam Deck compatibility with each passing yr. Kudos to Murderer’s Creed Shadows, then, for making the hassle.
