Alan Wake 2 is quite possibly one of the best games this year. It incorporates an amazing story that is told in a fantastic way. Unfortunately, it seemed that playing on the Steam Deck was impossible, with the game not launching at all and needing some hefty hardware to run it. But, the PC community is not one to balk at, and within a day, people started coming up with solutions to get it running on the Deck. And with some testing done, I can now say one of these solutions definitely works. Here is how we got Alan Wake 2 running on the Steam Deck:
NOTE: Alan Wake 2's performance on the Steam Deck isn't optimal, regularly going below 30 FPS, but it is technically playable. For the most stable way to play on the Deck, streaming from GeForce NOW is best. This was also tested on SteamOS 3.5.1, there are reports it may not work on the stable branch right now.
Alan Wake 2 Using Heroic Launcher
There are multiple ways to get Alan Wake 2 downloaded on the Steam Deck, and the one I use is the Heroic Launcher. This open-source launcher incorporates libraries from GOG, Epic, and Amazon Prime and allows you to play games you own from each. It is easy to install and log in; find the program on the Discover Store and download it.
Now, once you have logged in, download Alan Wake 2 from your library. Make sure that, when you install, the newest Proton GE option (8-21) is selected. There are reports that Proton Experimental works too, but my testing is primarily with GE. Now, there are a few things to do to get the game running:
Step 1:
Now that Alan Wake 2 is installed, click on the 3 horizontal bars next to the play button to bring up the game settings. Scroll down and click on Winetricks.
Step 2:
Select the default Wine Prefix option and press OK in the bottom right corner.
Step 3:
After that, select the option to install a Windows DLL or Component and press OK in the bottom right corner.
Step 4:
Now, we need to choose the DLLs and components we will install. There are 3 here that we will need: the dedcompiler_43, 47, and vcrun2022. Select all 3 and press OK in the bottom left corner.
Step 4.5:
There might be some "error" messages that appear. Don't worry; everything is installed correctly. Just hit OK until the boxes go away. If the Winetricks window re-appears, you can close it. If it doesn't, just continue on!
Step 5: (Optional)
After that is done, you are ready to start the next step, but I would recommend adding the game to Steam for ease of access through Game Mode. To do this, click on the game's artwork, then click on the 3 dots in a vertical line, then "Add to Steam." Once the Deck is rebooted, the game will appear in your library as a non-steam game.
Now that the installing part is done, we will need to change the UMA Buffer to 256M. To do this, shut off your Steam Deck entirely. Then, hold the Volume Up button while turning the Deck back on. This will bring you to the BIOS menu. Go to the Setup Utility, then go to Advanced, and scroll to the UMA Buffer.
Be careful when maneuvering and changing stuff in the BIOS menu, as a lot of these options do change core aspects of your device.
After that, hit the Select button and select the option to save changes and exit. Now, you can go into Desktop Mode, or Game Mode, and play the game! Just use the touchscreen to get rid of any error messages that may pop up.
Alan Wake 2 Using Epic Launcher
Now, if you don't want to use Heroic, you can use the Epic launcher directly. With the Epic launcher, you won't need to download any components or DLLs, just set the UMA Buffer to 256M. I do recommend using the NonSteamLauncher program to install Epic, but you can also do it manually. You can also use either Proton Experimental or Proton GE when running.
Alan Wake 2 Performance on Steam Deck
As for how the game runs on the Steam Deck, it isn't the best. This does make a lot of sense, especially with the specs it requires, but It is playable. Areas where you play as Saga can dip a bit, but there are different areas that can hit 30 and even a little bit higher when playing on the lowest settings possible. It is a ton of compromise, and I wouldn't play the game this way to enjoy it, but it is possible!
Alan Wake 2 is available on the Epic Games Store now for $49.99.
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Now I installed it on my deck and it runs so far. I mean it goes into the game with graphics. The problem is, that the game is still not recognizing my steamdeck gamepad Inputs after reaching the menu. Pressing A to skip the screens before is no problem, but then I have to press STEAM with the right touchpad to move the mouse and click. Looking around in the game with the touchpad works too. I tried other controller templates,but it's not working on my deck with the Newest beta OS
I think I found a solution for this issue. I added the game as a non Steam game directly to the game exe. I cannot install DLLs etc with via the heroic launcher, don't know why. I always have to use proton tricks with the non steam game prefix. But when starting Alan wake without the launcher, the controls stopped working. It seems also skipping cutscenea is not possible without the epic launcher. Anyway,after intsalling the necessary files via proton tricks I copied them to the prefix of the heroic installation of Alan wake two and added the game via heroic. Then I can start and play the game as a non steam game. But still textures are missing, like the fbi logo on the jacked, some on the environment,but also at the faces, that looks like plastic. Seems to be a driver issue in Linux and I think it will be solved in the future. Will wait a bit longer but it runs fine to play for me on the deck l (finished chapter 1 and 2)
I'm having the exact same problem, any solution?
There is a very annoying box coming to website lately which states:
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We will take a look into fixing this. It is something we need to have due to our ad provider's requirements, but we will work on optimizing it so you don't have to accept/consent to EVERY cookie. I apologize for the issue with it.
That's a rather odd use of the word "native" in this context. That would usually imply a Linux-native ELF binary. I'm not even sure what the use of term "natively" is even meant to imply here. That you're not using streaming?
A better term would be locally without it going over the character limit we have. It means it is downloaded directly to the device instead of streaming yes.
Why should the UMA be set to 256MB? CryoUtilities says to change it to 4G.
Our testing with CryoUtilities without this UMA Buffer change didn't work. There can't be any allocation to the UMA Buffer, or the lowest amount, because the game detects how much RAM is available. The lowest amount means more RAM the game can detect.
Stupid me 🙂 as you wrote, it's not working with the stable branch for now. So I will play on my notebook until I get an update or GeForce now starts to work with the game
Thank you so much for the guide. Since the game is still not running on GeForce now (Japan by softbank and still gives me a strange update necessary message) I was happy to play a bit on it on the deck.
The strange thing is, the game is starting and I get the missing mesh shader message and that the game is on an HDD and should be on an SSD. It's installed on the internal drive of the deck.
I can skip the first screens with A but when entering the main menu, the controller stops working. I can use the mouse to navigate and when I press a controller button the ingame overlay in the menu shows the Controller input instead of the keyboard but I cannot move around or click anything with the controller.
After starting the game with the mouse I get to the loading screen and when clicking one more I just get a black screen. I'm using proton ge 20.1 but my deck itself runs the stable update channel. Not sure if it's not working pre beta right now!?
Nope only works on preview 3.5.1