Arc Raiders and the Steam Deck make a good team, on the proviso of a Proton handshake

RPS has received disapproval precocious for covering Arc Raiders, an extraction shooter, utilizing writers who don’t usually similar extraction shooters. Allow maine to rectify this, by alternatively bringing you an appraisal of Arc Raiders connected the Steam Deck arsenic idiosyncratic who doesn't cognize however to purpose with thumbsticks.

My existent excursions into these robot-conquered wastes person frankincense been going terribly. And yet, it’s inactive abundantly wide that Arc Raiders is astir arsenic bully a acceptable for the Deck – and, by extension, astir handheld PCs – arsenic you could realistically expect from a modern, high-fidelity, Unreal Engine 5-powered multiplayer lootshoot. Even if, astatine first, it doesn’t look similar it volition adjacent launch.

Luckily, that’s an casual fix. At the clip of writing, Arc Raiders needs Proton Experimental – the astir cutting-edge mentation of Valve’s SteamOS compatibility bundle – to run. But that’s conscionable a substance of opening the game’s Properties menu, scrolling to the Compatibility tab, and selecting Proton Experimental arsenic a forced compatibility tool. Exit the paper and it’s acceptable to rotation with nary harm done, unless you number having to repetition "compatibility" 3 times successful 1 paragraph.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Once you’re in, it’s casual goings. Arc Raiders automatically sets itself to the Steam Deck’s autochthonal 1280x800 resolution, ensures a playable commencement by defaulting to the Low prime preset, and contempt immoderate keyboard-specific glyphs successful the archetypal setup process, refuses to marque an afterthought of gamepad controls. Smart usage of contextual input changes and radial menus compensate for the deficiency of keys, and it readily employs some the Deck’s touchpads: the near is simply a D-pad mirror, affluent successful shortcuts, and the close offers an alternate aiming method to those of america who suck with sticks.

Crucially, it beats the UE5 likelihood to execute alternatively decently connected those default settings, usually flitting wrong the 40-50fps scope connected Low prime and TAAU. There are immoderate method blemishes: traversal stutter is fleeting but common, and connected a fewer occasions, tinkering with the graphics mid-match sent maine crashing backmost to SteamOS. Arc Raiders besides gets rather a thirst on, draining my original, LCD-screened Steam Deck’s artillery from 100% to level successful a comparatively brisk 1h 21m.

Still, the upside of needing a reliable online transportation to truthful overmuch arsenic footwear the crippled – which is different hardly a people successful Arc Raiders’ favour, particularly for handheld play – is that you’re astir apt ne'er going to stray excessively acold from mains power. And the symptom of crashing is astatine slightest dulled by being capable to reconnect to mislaid sessions, redeeming your loot truthful it tin beryllium stolen disconnected your corpse later, arsenic intended.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Arc Raiders Steam Deck settings guide

Ideally, immoderate of those are the kinds of foibles that tin beryllium smoothed retired with patches, though you tin fine-tune Arc Raider’s Steam Deck show close now. I suggest going for a 'prettier yet upscaled' approach, whereby the framerate headroom afforded by switching to speedy AMD FSR 3 lets you bump up immoderate of the idiosyncratic prime options to their (often overmuch better-looking) Medium settings. Here’s the afloat database of what I’ve settled on, pursuing immoderate unrecorded testing:

• Resolution scaling method: AMD FSR 3
• AMD FSR 3 Quality: Balanced
• Motion blur: Disabled
• Nvidia RTX Global Illumination: Static
• View distance: Medium
• Anti-Aliasing: Medium
• Shadows: Medium
• Post-processing: Low
• Texture: Medium
• Effects: Low
• Reflections: Medium
• Foliage: Medium
• Global illumination resolution: Low

I’ve opted for FSR 3 implicit TAAU oregon TSR upscaling due to the fact that though its antialiasing could beryllium crisper, it inactive looks amended (to my eyes) than TAAU’s blurriness, portion TSR looks crisp but consistently runs 5-6fps slower. All told, these settings should get you a akin 40-50fps arsenic the default Low preset, sometimes squeaking into 50-55fps successful little demanding areas – and each with a noticeable item upgrade.

Again, that’s not atrocious astatine all, fixed the better-performing UE5 games connected Steam Deck inactive thin to request flattened prime settings and adjacent much assertive upscaling tech to deed 30fps. Arc Raiders sails past that baseline, and adjacent if its online request and artillery slurpage mean it’ll ne'er beryllium the ideal handheld extraction shooter, it makes a bully interruption from the bellowed hardware demands of different modern enactment games. So agelong arsenic you retrieve to enactment Proton Experimental connected it, anyway.