Elden Ring launched alongside the Steam Deck handheld, but how does it play?
Both Elden Ring, the new game from FromSoftware, and Valve’s Steam Deck handheld console/PC hybrid were launched at the same time, and both are highly anticipated releases. Perhaps most excitingly of all, Elden Ring can be played on the Steam Deck, and it launched with a Steam Deck verified certification. This means it should run well on the Steam Deck, with default settings ensuring a good level of performance, compatibility with the Steam Deck’s control scheme and text that’s legible on the Steam Deck’s 7-inch 1280 x 800 screen. Best of all, if you bought Elden Ring for your PC via Steam, it means you can play it on the Steam Deck without buying it again, and thanks to cloud saves, you can pick up where you left off, no matter what device you last played it on — as long as you have an internet connection. With two big launches coinciding, we were keen to see just how well Elden Ring runs on the Steam Deck, and if it’s worth picking up for the handheld. As we mentioned earlier, Elden Ring should run well on default settings. This is set to ‘Maximum’ graphical settings, and right away we were impressed with how good the game looks on the Steam Deck’s screen. It’s seriously impressive having a handheld games console that can run a game as large and as ambitious as Elden Ring. Cloud saves also did their thing, allowing us to carry on from where we left the game on a desktop PC. However, when loading the game we were unable to connect to the Elden Ring servers. This means that online aspect of the game are currently unavailable on the Steam Deck.
