Classics On Deck #1: Unreal Tournament 3 / Black & White

If you haven't yet, follow us on X (Twitter), Mastodon, or Bluesky to know when we post new articles, and join our Reddit or Subscribe to us on YouTube to check out our content and interact with our awesome community. Thank you for supporting us!

While SteamDeckHQ has largely been focused on how to get the most out of your Steam Deck when it comes to the latest games, it's perfectly capable of playing some classic games, too. We want to highlight these older games, so we have made a new series called "Classics On Deck." Each week, we will look at 2-3 older games and go over how we got them to run and what the experiences are like on the Steam Deck. This week, SteamDeckHQ writer Michael Baker and I are looking at Unreal Tournament 3 from 2007 and the unique god-game Black & White from 2001.

Unreal Tournament 3 (2007)

• Digital Availability: None, Requires physical disc & USB DVD-Drive, or equivalent ISO
• Version Tested: Disc (Physical Disc)
• Wine/Proton Version Used: Wine GE 8-26

Installation Guide

There is a specific Lutris installer for Unreal Tournament 3 if you own it on Steam, so you can install it via that method. However, if you owned it on Steam previously, it should still be in your library to download as well.

Otherwise, insert the Unreal Tournament 3 disc into your USB DVD Drive for your Steam Deck, and select “Install a Windows game from an executable” when adding a game to Lutris. Then, name it; I named mine "Unreal Tournament 3." Proceed along the Lutris steps. Select the “SetupUT3.exe” file on the root of the disc as the setup file for the game when Lutris prompts you for one.

Proceed with the installation as you would on Windows. The setup may take a while to begin and finish, as the progress bar isn't very accurate.

For some reason, once the installation is complete, Lutris chooses an AGEIA Physics test executable to be the game’s executable, so you’ll need to right-click on your Unreal Tournament 3 install in Lutris and configure, then go to the Game options tab and change the executable to the correct one.

My correct executable was found at: /home/deck/Games/unreal-tournament-3/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Unreal Tournament 3/Binaries/UT3.exe

Once you’ve saved the new configuration, you can boot the game as normal from Steam if you made a Steam Shortcut, or from Lutris otherwise.

Steam Deck Performance & Issues

Unreal Tournament 3 runs at 60 FPS, and you can apply a 7W TDP Limit to run the game at max graphics settings. The game does support 1280×800 resolutions in the video menu.

For controls, you should apply the Keyboard (WASD) and Mouse template to get the basics in place. You may wish to modify the hotkeys either in-game or in Steam Input to your liking. I suggest lowering sensitivity to help with aiming.

On first boot, the game had issues with multi-colored textures on foliage and incorrect frame pacing, however, after setting the resolution, video settings, and enabling V-Sync, and then exiting and re-entering the game, these problems disappeared.

Gameplay

Don't worry if you missed playing it back in the day, Unreal Tournament 3 is still a blast to play today, especially in multiplayer. Unreal Tournament and Quake were fantastic games for LAN parties and remain so to this day. They're fast-paced FPS chaos with tonnes of customizability to keep you coming back for more. You can generally get a disc copy of the game for not too much, and if you want to experience a "retro" shooter, it's worth a buy.

Black & White (2001)

• Digital Availability: None, Requires physical disc & USB CD-Drive, or equivalent ISO
• Version Tested: Disc (ISO)
• Wine/Proton Version Used: Proton Experimental

Installation

Black and White has been abandonware for years, and with its rights locked in purgatory between EA and Microsoft, it is nearly impossible that we will see it revived. While it is a technical nightmare to get it working on modern hardware, it's not impossible. When my new OLED Steam Deck arrived last week, I did some experimenting to see if it was doable. A cool thing about Black and White is its surprisingly large modding community, with everything from extra features to full modpacks available. As a note, my co-writer Oliver has much more experience in this than I do. This was my first time doing anything like this.

To install the game, I used a disc on a second computer with Windows OS and put the installation folder onto a USB drive, which I transferred to my Steam Deck. You may require both the 1.1 and 1.2 official patches, and an unofficial patch exists that fixes more bugs, unlocks all creatures missing from the base game, and allows you to skip the tedious tutorial if you have played it before.

Steam Deck Performance & Issues

To get it to play in Gaming Mode, it is easy to go into Steam and add the runblack.exe file as a non-Steam title. Then, force the game to run with Proton Experimental in the properties, and change the controller profile to the Keyboard (WASD) And Mouse template setup, since Black & White has no controller support.

To my delight, the game runs pretty well! I only messed around in the first Land, which is the main tutorial and the beginning of the plot, but it is amazing to see Black & White on the Steam Deck. The controls take some getting used to, and I will need to tweak the controller profile until I’m satisfied, but the vanilla performance is solid. It does not require much power either, and I saw around 6 watts average power draw with a 4W TDP. I recommend keeping the frame rate locked to 30 FPS, as the game is not built for a higher framerate.

Gameplay

One of the biggest games from my childhood was Black and White by Lionhead Studios. The lovechild of one of the most notorious game developers in history, Peter Molyneux, this was a gigantic release back in the day. I remember the excitement and hype leading up to Black and White’s release in 2001, and the unique gameplay still holds up today. I enjoyed the 2005 sequel Black and White 2 a fair bit, but it could never live up to the original's legacy.

It's probably the definitive god game, a genre that has sadly vanished from mainstream play in the mid-2000s. Ironically, the relatively lukewarm releases of Black and White 2 and Spore cemented that downfall. You can nurture a Creature into learning how to help your village, train them to become deadly in battle, and even teach them tricks. Alongside the creature training, you can guide your village as a deity.

That's it for this week's Classics on Deck. We'll be back with some more classic games to play on your Steam Deck in the next one!

Let us know in the comments below if you want us to check out any specific games, too, and we will add them to the list of games we plan on finding and testing.

If you enjoyed this article, check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that will help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got you covered!