Starfield on Steam Deck – can you play Bethesda's spacefaring RPG on the go
Starfield is out in Early Access at the moment, but many players are wondering if Bethesdas latest RPG will be playable on Valves Steam Deck.
The Steam Deck is a magical device, not only does it let you play your Steam library on the go, but it paved the way for a portable PC revolution with devices like the Asus Rog Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and AYANEO Kun stepping into the fray. Arguably the biggest PC gaming release since the Steam Deck launched is Bethesda's Starfield, which launches later this week on Wednesday, September 6 (although you can get it right now with Starfield Early Access), so naturally players want to know if you can play this huge RPG on the Steam Deck.
Because Starfield isn't technically out yet, Valve doesn't have an official verdict on the Starfield Steam page, with it listed as Unknown on the system itself (for those unaware, Valve usually labels games as Verified, Playable, Unknown, or Unsupported on Steam Deck). However, as you can expect people have tried to run the game on the Steam Deck already and can confirm Yes, you can play Starfield on Steam Deck . Although as you would expect, it isn't perfect., with most players stating that they're unable to reach a solid 30fps on the game, but if you can tolerate some framerate issues its doable.
However – as anyone who has played a Bethesda title on PC would know – the Bethesda modding community works fast. A user named TheHybred on Nexusmods created the 'Steam Deck Essentials – FPS and QOL' mod. The mod's description states that the purpose of the mod is "to improve performance, stability & consistency for the Steam Deck & other low powered handhelds/PCs. Offering up to 38% better performance compared to vanilla Low settings depending on the scene". The Nexusmods page for the mod goes into detail on how to install the mod if you'd like to do it yourself.
Starfield on Steam Deck recommended settings
If you're not interested or comfortable with modding fear not, as a user on the r/SteamDeck Subreddit posted some recommended settings for running the game on Steam Deck, these are as follows:
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Dynamic Resolution: OFF
Render Resolution Scale: 50%
Graphics Preset: Custom
Shadow Quality: Medium
Indirect Lighting : Medium
Reflections: Low
Particle Quality: Low
Volumetric Lighting: Medium
Crowd Density: Low
Motion Blur: Off
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GTAO Quality: Low
Grass Quality: Low
Contact Shadows: Low
VSync: Off
Upscaling: FSR2.0
Sharpening: 85% of bar (trust)
Enable VRS: Off
Film Grain Intensity : 0% of bar
Enable Depth of Field: On
There's no doubt Bethesda knows how big the Steam Deck market is and will be aiming to get the game as stable as possible on Valve's handheld. So if you're not happy with how Starfield runs on the platform at launch, maybe give it a month or so.
Of course this all only matters for the Steam version of the game, not the Windows Store version included with Xbox Game Pass, as the Steam Deck sadly can't play Windows store games natively. However, you can stream the game through Xbox Cloud Streaming in the Steam Deck's browser.
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