Ubisoft backflips, says Assassin's Creed Shadows will support Steam Deck at launch, but I doubt I'll actually want to play it there

Ubisoft has confirmed that Assassin's Creed Shadows will run on Steam Deck at launch, which is great albeit unexpected news. It's unexpected, because last month Ubisoft ruled out Steam Deck support, pointing out—quite reasonably—that Valve's handheld is "below our minimum specs for PC".

So what's changed? Presumably the studio has done some testing, tweaked some knobs, and discovered that the game does actually run. "We are happy to say that we are supporting Steam Deck at launch and are currently awaiting the level of classification from Valve," the official Assassin's Creed X account wrote. "More info to come soon."

Steam Deck OLED released in November 2023 and is holding up astonishingly well. It runs Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and a bunch of other recent blockbusters I certainly didn't expect it would run. That's impressive work for a handheld device, and equally impressive work from the developers who manage to make their games work on it.

But will Assassin's Creed Shadows be fun to play on Steam Deck? I am doubtful. Those aforementioned heavyhitters are both "Verified" Steam Deck games, but they're clearly made for larger screens and beefier rigs. It's cool that they run, but it's pretty hard to enjoy them when they look closer to moving Claude Monet paintings than modern videogames. They're smeared, jerky, and overall suboptimal. Maybe I'm being picky, but I usually find I'm less picky than other PC gamers.

Still, if Steam Deck is your only gaming device—and I feel like that's a growing category of player—Assassin's Creed Shadows is on the menu. It's great to see studios actually addressing the still-small but growing handheld market directly, too.

Will Assassin's Creed Shadows factor into our list of the best Steam Deck games? Time will tell, but if you ask me, the device is perfect for most indies, CRPGs (those track pads), and Vampire Survivors.