Will Starfield be on Steam Deck?

Bethesda will be launching its gargantuan space-RPG, Starfield, in just a few weeks. As time goes on, the anticipation of fans only increases, with more and more questions about Starfield cropping up every day, including whether the RPG will have space-fishing. It doesn’t.

One question that is on the minds of those who own Valve’s portable console is will Starfield be on the Steam Deck? The answer is uncertain, given that this is one of the few things Bethesda has remained silent about, but we can certainly try to hazard a guess as to whether Starfield will be compatible with the Steam Deck or not.

Will Starfield be on Steam Deck?

Bethesda has not confirmed whether Starfield will be compatible with the Steam Deck or not. When asked about Steam Deck compatibility during the Kinda Funny Xcast, Todd Howard refrained from answering.

What we do know is that Starfield will be locked to 30FPS on Xbox Series X and S. Xbox Series X players can expect 4K resolutions, with Series S owners limited to 1440p; either way, both versions will be locked to 30FPS.

This does lead us to believe that Starfield will be heavily CPU-bound, meaning that it might not actually be ready or optimised for the Steam Deck. That said, this likely won’t stop people from trying to run the game on their handhelds with Starfield arriving on Steam on September 6. Though, without Steam Deck verification, even though it's possible, it’s likely that performance won’t be great, or even a playable standard.

With huge games such as Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 verified for the Steam Deck, we already know that the handheld is capable of running some rather intense games. That said, Starfield looks to be one of the most intense games of the lot with its 1000+ procedurally-generated planets.

While this is an exciting opportunity for Bethesda to get Starfield available on the handheld, it’s still not guaranteed that the game will be feasible for Steam Deck at launch. In fact, it’s looking quite unlikely, but we all know this won’t stop some from finding a way to get Starfield working on the go. And there’s still a chance that Starfield could become Steam Deck verified after launch.

So, while it seems unlikely that Starfield will be available on the Steam Deck at launch, you still have plenty else to look forward to. There'll be full mod support from launch, and a rather interesting skill tree to progress through, which one player has managed to work out before Starfield's launch. Impressive.