Assassin’s Creed Shadows might run on the Steam Deck after all. In a huge u-turn from what was posted during a fan Q&A a few weeks ago, Ubisoft has come out and stated it has submitted the game to Valve for classification, meaning it could be rated Playable or Verified come launch day.
In my original story, the technology director of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Pierre F, stated that the game would not support the Steam Deck “at launch.” This left the door open for future support, but due to fan demand, it now appears as though the game has been submitted to Valve for a Steam Deck rating.
The official Assassin’s Creed X (formerly Twitter) account has posted the news, stating that the reason for the change of heart is because “Many of you [the fans] have been asking about Steam Deck.” While this seems positive, I’m still cautious about this move, especially given that it was quite clearly stated so recently that the best handheld gaming PC didn’t meet even the minimum Assassin’s Creed Shadows system requirements.
Submitting a game to Valve for a rating is one thing, but the game running well and receiving a positive rating is another. It’s also worth pointing out that Valve’s Steam Deck rating system has come under fire many times since its release, including recently for upgrading the status of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to Verified, despite its performance being far from ideal, especially on the default settings.
That’s not to say that Assassin’s Creed Shadows wouldn’t be a huge win for the Steam Deck, especially after its system requirements initially seemed to write off the possibility of it running on the device’s aging AMD APU. That being said, it’s likely that the game would need to default to the lowest possible settings with AMD FSR enabled in order to run, a compromise many triple-A releases have made to secure verification.
With just over a week until the Assassin’s Creed Shadows release date, I’m keen to see how this situation plays out, and whether Ubisoft can secure, at the very least, a Playable rating.
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