How does Assassin’s Creed Shadows run on Steam Deck?

In the lead-up to the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, there was a modest amount of noise made about how it was Steam Deck Verified. That means it was more than playable on Valve’s handheld, but now that Shadows is out, how does it actually run?

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Steam Deck performance

While Assassin’s Creed Shadows is Deck Verified, it doesn’t run flawlessly out the gate. I have a Steam Deck OLED, and when I first loaded into the game, it was chugging. Fine-tuning the settings, however, did wonders. I found that I could run the game at a mostly steady 30 FPS in most situations with a few alterations, which you can see in the above screenshot taken at the peak of Osaka Castle. Higher volumes of physics objects or other one-screen data still caused some hitching now and again.

Here’s one of the main issues, though. The Steam Deck version of AC Shadows has a very limited selection of graphics settings, a grand departure from other Verified games. You cannot adjust individual image quality settings like textures, shadows, volumetrics, reflections, or other bandwidth-hungry aspects.

Instead, you’re limited to a few resolution, upscaling, and field of view settings. These restrictions aren’t a huge hindrance, as the game is optimized enough for the Deck’s hardware that you shouldn’t need to adjust much, but that you’re not allowed to at all is surprising.

Additionally (and though this isn’t a “performance” issue), the game is locked behind Ubisoft Connect, even on the Deck. After downloading AC Shadows, you can’t start the game until you use the clunky Deck keypad (or linked keyboard) to enter your Ubisoft account information. A mild inconvenience, sure, but one that immediately and permanently soured me on the handheld experience, but just a little.

How to get better performance in Assassin’s Creed Shadows on the Steam Deck

Assassin’s Creed Shadows might not have many levers to pull to increase performance, but what’s here is serviceable. To start, here are the settings I ended up using on my OLED Deck for a stable, if a bit sluggish, experience:

• Field of View: 88%
• Raytraced Global Illumination: Diffuse Hideout Only
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9
• VSync: On
• Resolution: 1280×720
• Upscaler Type: TAA
• Minimum Dynamic Resolution: 20%
• Maximum Dynamic Resolution: 50%
• Sharpen Strength: 0.65
• Frame Generation: Off

Frame Generation is available on the Deck version of AC Shadows, but it trades a massive image quality hit for ten FPS gain on average. The amount of aliasing and distortion was too much of a sacrifice in my book. I’m using TAA over FSR as the image quality is better with TAA, especially for rain and other environmental effects.

Lastly, I find that setting a 30 FPS framerate cap using the Deck’s Performance settings helps get a bit more performance. I know that bit of advice is like hearing a broken record, but it’s made my experience better nonetheless. Should you be in the market for an in-game improvement to your day, check out our guide on adopting pets in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

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