Resident Evil Requiem Is Surprisingly Playable on Steam Deck So Far - Early Impressions

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Ahead of its launch later this week, I had a chance to check out the PC version of Resident Evil Requiem on Steam Deck through an early review code. While I can't include any comparisons right now due to pre-release restrictions and getting a code for PC late, I wanted to at least cover how Resident Evil Requiem feels on Deck. If you are curious about the game itself, you can read our dedicated review of it.

With no sign of Valve testing it as of this writing, I was curious if Resident Evil Requiem would even boot up, given the experience I had trying out Dragon's Dogma 2 or Monster Hunter Wilds on Deck. It appears to be a lot more scalable, and that is good news for handhelds like the Steam Deck. Based on my time with Resident Evil Requiem's opening hours, it is more than playable already, but it can be even better with some tweaking.

On first launch, Requiem boots up with a "Compiling shaders" screen. You are then prompted to select a performance or quality priority before the game checks your hardware and sets some settings automatically. Initial impressions after starting a new game were ok, but I wanted to see how much I could push it on the Steam Deck.

Before getting into the Resident Evil Requiem's recommended settings for the Steam Deck so far and general impressions, the game is split up into more open sections that are demanding compared to the indoor locations that have no trouble running even at above 60fps on the Deck. While you may think the opening hour is holding up well, the first time you control Leon in one of the early sections of the game that takes place outdoors, it starts to push the hardware. This is the section I used to test settings alongside replaying the opening hour a few times.

Resident Evil Requiem defaults to FSR 1 for some reason on Steam Deck and caps the frame rate to 30fps. However, by using a combination of the lowest settings with texture filtering set to 16x anisotropic filtering, FSR 3.1.5 at Balanced or Quality, and using the Quick Access Menu to aim for 45fps at 90hz target on Steam Deck OLED, I was able to get a solid experience with HDR enabled. Steam Deck LCD testing and more impressions for later on in the game will come in the near future.

As for power draw, it ranges from 16 to 18W when using these settings. Leaving the frame rate fully uncapped results in above 22W, with the frame rate hitting 80fps indoors early on.

One recommendation I have, aside from graphics or display, is with the controls. I recommend enabling the right trackpad as a mouse or enabling gyro using Steam Input. This helps with aiming, and having played most Resident Evil games on Deck with the right trackpad for aiming, I also had to do it here to get the best experience.

Overall, Resident Evil Requiem is surprisingly playable on the Steam Deck so far, and it exceeds my expectations. Stay tuned for more coverage where we compare different versions and our final recommended settings for Requiem, which will take into account some later parts of the game.

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