Is Valorant Steam Deck compatible? Riot’s competitive shooter has enjoyed an extended window of popularity, shaking the labels of it being a flash-in-the-pan hit. While you may typically want a full mouse and keyboard set up to enjoy time with your favorite agents, the game can also be played on Valve’s popular portable.
If you’re willing to go through the effort to download Valorant on your Steam Deck, be sure to check out the system requirements first to get an idea of how it may run. Given that the game also sits around the 30GB mark, you shouldn’t have to buy one of the best MicroSD cards for Steam Deck to fit it on the console.
Is Valorant Steam Deck compatible?
Yes. Valorant is not rated as playable in any way by Valve, however, if you’re willing to install Windows onto your Steam Deck, this is a workaround that will allow the game to run.
Valorant is likely never going to be rated by Valve due to Riot’s anti-cheat software and its incompatibility with Linux, the Steam Deck’s native operating system. That being said, it is possible to load Windows onto the Steam Deck, and this will allow you to bypass any restrictions or incompatibilities with software.
Once Windows is installed on your Steam Deck, it’s as simple as downloading the Riot Launcher and the Valorant game files. We’ve already noted that you should pay close attention to the system requirements, but the performance you can expect to top out at 60 fps if you have the settings on global lows.
In order to get the controls properly mapped, you’ll also need to use reWASD, a program that is fully compatible with the Steam Deck when Windows is installed. This allows you to remap the in-game key bindings to the Steam Deck, but it won’t be perfect.
As the video below shows, there are some compromises that have to be made, but ultimately the game will run, and the controls will bind. I’m not entirely sure if the effort involved in getting Valorant to run on the Steam Deck is worth it, but it can be done.
For a look at some games that are fully compatible with Valve’s portable powerhouse, check out our picks for the best Steam Deck games currently available to buy.