We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

Is The First Descendant Steam Deck compatible?

Nexon's new looter shooter looks set to run on the Steam Deck, but it is yet to be officially rated by Valve, meaning compatability isn't perfect.

an image of a character from the first descendant with a steam deck overlayed

Is The First Descendant Steam Deck compatible? Hype for Nexon’s new looter shooter is building, thanks to some successful beta periods and the promise of improvements before launch. While it’s not due for release until 2024, we already have a good idea of how the game will run on the Steam Deck.

Requiring just 30GB of storage, The First Descendant system requirements are quite reasonable across the board. The Steam Deck can handle running the game given that it’s one of the best PC handhelds on the market, but there’s still time for an official rating to be given.

Is The First Descendant Steam Deck compatible?

The First Descendant is not yet rated for Steam Deck by Valve, but performance during recent beta periods shows that there is hope for compatibility at launch.  

With The First Descendant already on Steam, you won’t have to jump through hoops to get it installed. However, to launch the game, you will need to play around with the compatibility settings.

The best option here is Proton Hotfix, which can produce approximately 30-40 fps performance on global low settings with FSR enabled. We also tested out Intel XeSS but this led to worse performance during combat sections with frames often dropping to the low 20s.

It’s worth noting that when you first start the game, you will get a message about hardware compatibility, asking you to review the minimum requirements. This is fairly common in games that are unrated by Valve, but the message can be safely ignored for now.

The First Descendant release date will arrive sometime in 2024, so we’re optimistic that Valve could bestow an official Playable or Verified rating on the game.

If you’re running low on storage space, you can check out one of the best MicroSD cards for the Steam Deck to save you from having to delete games and make space the hard way.

While you wait for The First Descendant to arrive, check out our list of the best Steam Deck games you can play right now and make the most of your portable powerhouse.