Subnautica 2 Steam Deck Verified With a “Solid 30 FPS” Preset
Those hoping to see Subnautica 2 receive an official Steam Deck-verified badge will be happy to know that the game is fully playable on the handheld device.
Unknown Worlds put plenty of work into getting the game to run on it, though they started on it early in development. The results? A “solid 30 FPS” (frames-per-second) experience that you can take anywhere with you.
Subnautica 2 Runs at 30 FPS on the Steam Deck
Despite looking like a graphically demanding game, Unknown Worlds has put in quite a lot of work to ensure that Subnautica 2 could run on the Steam Deck. Of course, it does mean graphical sacrifices, which the team revealed during a recent media briefing. During the game’s early development, roughly a few weeks after having a playable build, the team decided to see what it would be like to run it on the Steam Deck without any real optimizations.
As one could probably guess, the results weren’t so great, if not unplayable, but they were determined to make it work, and thus began finding ways to optimize the experience. Long story short, they managed to get the game running at 30 FPS, which they described as “solid” with low graphical presets. Considering the game is built on Unreal Engine 5 and leverages all the big graphical features, it’s quite impressive that they were even able to get it running on the Steam Deck. It does mean cutting back on those graphical options, but it’s a trade-off that many Steam Deck players have grown used to, and being worth it, as it allows you to take your game on the go anytime you want.
What’s more, you could get it running at a higher frame rate depending on the upscaler methods you use and which settings you tweak. But for the current optimized experience (which the game detects for you), it does look like 30 FPS at low settings will be the way to go for portability.
Although it’s yet to be announced, seeing the game run on the Steam Deck does bode well for a potential Nintendo Switch 2 port if that ever happens down the road.
For more on Subnautica 2, check out the game’s early access roadmap to see the planned updates.
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