007: First Light Is A Joy to Play On The Steam Deck So Far - First Impressions

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When a new AAA title launches in 2026, we Steam Deck users usually start praying for a semi-decent experience. But every now and then, developers optimize their games so well that we end up asking ourselves, “How does this run so great?” Thankfully, our first impressions of 007: First Light suggest that IOI has done an excellent job with optimization here, to the point where you can actually prioritize either high frame rates or better visual quality depending on your preference.

When I first booted up the game, every single setting was pushed to the absolute lowest possible values, even FSR was set to Performance mode. Naturally, that made us very nervous at first. But once I actually got into gameplay, I was surprised to see frame rates hovering between 50-70 FPS, and most of our concerns immediately faded away.

In more demanding NPC-heavy areas, performance starts fluctuating between 40-50 FPS on the default settings. Unfortunately, the game only offers two frame rate cap options: 30 and 60 FPS. I experimented with raising several settings, including switching the upscaler to Quality mode and increasing most options to Medium, with textures set to High. Performance then dropped into the 32-40 FPS range. However, considering the scale and visual complexity of the game, it still looked genuinely impressive. Locking the game to 30 FPS ended up providing the most enjoyable overall experience without sacrificing too much visual fidelity.

You can also keep the default settings and use the Steam Deck’s built-in 45 FPS limiter, but in my experience, that introduced noticeable input lag, which made the game feel much worse to play. Because of that, I can’t really recommend it. If you want a high frame rate experience, your only realistic option is to stick with the lowest default settings and tolerate the fluctuating performance.

Shadow quality and hair rendering are especially demanding and can heavily impact performance, but aside from those settings, the visuals never turn into a complete blurry mess. And honestly, Steam Deck users are already used to playing demanding modern games at 30 FPS, often with visuals far worse than this. So for now, our recommendation is definitely the 30 FPS locked setup.

Here are our specific settings that we are using right now:

• VSync - On
• VSync Interval - 2.2
• Transfer Function - 2.2
• FSR Quality
• Texture Quality - High
• Terrain Quality - Medium
• Shadow Quality - Medium
• Reflection Quality - Medium
• Volumetric FOC - Low

So, the experience has been quite surprising on the Deck so far. Most AAA require lots of compromises to run well, but 007: First Light doesn't feel like this. It is quite playable and looks good, even on the lowest settings, and sticking to 30 FPS doesn't feel like a stretch either. We will have a full recommendation with our full review, which we are working on, but for now, it's safe to say this will be wonderful to take on the go.

007: First Light can be purchased for $69.99 on Steam.

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