Dying Light: The Beast Might Be Playable On The Steam Deck, But It's Hard To Tell

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I have played so many first-person open-world games, but one of the first ones that really stuck with me was Dead Island. I loved the original game so much that I actually bought a copy for two of my friends to play with when it came out. Since then, developer Techland has created Dying Light, which feels like an evolution of what Dead Island would go to next. Now, the next game in the series is on the way, and Dying Light: The Beast is shaping up to be a brutal, glorious experience to play.

I actually had the chance to play it at Gamescom earlier this year, and it was more of the same in all the right ways. I was using weapons to hack and slash at zombies, and my go-to dropkicking move makes a sweet return as well. There's something so satisfying about jumping up and kicking zombies so hard they fly across the screen. As The Beast, we also have a meter that grows and can activate our semi-hulk state, where we punch everything around us with extra force that can get us out of some tricky spots.

The thing about Dying Light: The Beast is that it feels like more Dying Light, and that's actually why I liked it so much. They stuck to the formula and made some tiny changes and enhancements to improve the experience without hurting the core that makes Dying Light so great. Parkour feels fluid, fighting is both strategic and gory, while also feeling satisfying to actually kill zombies. I didn't have as much time to play and explore as I would have wanted, but I loved my time with it.

Recently, Techland released the system requirements for the game, and while it's a little confusing, it gives me a little bit of hope that it could run on the Steam Deck. There are both desktop and laptop minimum system requirements, and they each have a better requirement for the Deck in different ways.

In the PC (Desktop) specs, the minimum requirement calls for a heavy CPU that exceeds what the Deck is capable of, but the GPU requirement is still in the realm of playability. However, on the laptop side, the CPU recommendation is still beefy, but it is asking for CPUs with lower core counts, while the GPU is more powerful. In all honesty, it's a very confusing layout, and it makes it hard to discern what the actual recommendations will be for a device like the Steam Deck. On one hand, it could be considered more similar to a laptop, but on the other, PC (desktop) specs are what I would usually go with for other games, so I have a clearer idea using them.

Either way, the game is asking for 16GB RAM and 6GB GPU memory, which goes a bit above and beyond what the Deck's 16GB of RAM is capable of. There have been some other games that do something similar and still work on the Deck, so I am remaining optimistic. It's tough to discern whether or not it will actually be playable on the Steam Deck, but with how well the last game (Dying Light 2: Reloaded Edition) runs, how close most of the requirements are, the fact that the minimum is shooting for 1080p resolution, and the inclusion of upscalers, I think it's possible it will be playable.

For now, I would recommend not pre-purchasing if you're only playing on the Deck, but it will be one to watch. Hopefully we will find out soon, because this would be an awesome game to play on the go.

Dying Light: The Beast can be pre-ordered ahead of its September 18th release for $59.99.

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