Ghostrunner 2 is Shaping Up Well on the Steam Deck

At Gamescom, I was given the chance to try out the upcoming Ghostrunner 2, a sequel to the fast-paced, cyberpunk slasher. I loved what I played and was told that the game had been tested on the Steam Deck through some aspects of development. I was super excited to hear that, considering how well the original game runs, but I was curious to see it in action. Sadly, there was no Steam Deck there to test the game, but I was given a code to test the Gamescom demo at home, giving me the chance to try it out on my Deck! While it was in a demo state, I walked away optimistic.

NOTE: I was given permission to discuss my experiences, but I am not allowed to share any screenshots or video of the demo. Any images you see here are images from the store page, not from my gameplay.

Ghostrunner 2's Gamescom Demo on the Steam Deck

Knowing the state of early demos, I started things up, not expecting perfect performance, and I am glad I did that. It wasn't amazing, but what it did show was a lot of promise that the full release will be a more refined, cleaner version that will be able to perform extremely well.

Running, Slicing, and Dicing

The first part of the demo is where you are able to run around, wall-jump, grind on rails, and slice people up. It is awesome, and I love the game, but the performance here was the hardest of the entire demo. As I ran around, there would be some stutters and slight freezes that ended up getting me killed multiple times. This might seem concerning, but when these weren't happening, I was able to get an almost perfect 55 or 60 FPS thanks to some reduced settings and wonderful FSR 2 resolution scaling.

Motorcycle Mania

The second part of the demo is the motorcycle ride. This was a lot smoother than the first part of the demo, and I regularly hit 60 FPS with these settings. There was an occasional short freeze when I was about to die, but I didn't get any while driving around and making sick jumps. So, unless I was about to die, it was smooth sailing.

Overall, the time spent left me with loads of optimism. Yes, there is some freezing and stuttering from time to time, but apart from that, Ghostrunner 2's demo was able to stick to high framerates and give a fluid experience overall. Because of this, I have a lot of confidence that the full game will be much more playable than I had here. And with the team testing on the Deck internally, I am hopeful this will be fantastic on release.

Ghostrunner 2 can be wishlisted or pre-ordered for $39.99 on Steam ahead of its October 26th release.

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