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4 months ago
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The Finals is a brand-new free-to-play FPS that received its full release during this year’s Game Awards and quickly gained traction for its destructible environments and action-packed gameplay, even beating the Steam player count of MW3 and Warzone at its peak. The game is currently available on current-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and also on PC. Considering the fact that the game is available on Valve’s platform, many Steam Deck users are wondering if they can run The Finals on their handheld console as well. Let’s take a look.
Is the Steam Deck Capable of Running The Finals?
Although the Steam Deck meets the requirements to run the game on its hardware, The Finals is equipped with the popular middleware Easy Anti-Cheat, which is used to effectively counter cheating and hacking in online multiplayer titles. It has been implemented in well-known competitive shooters like Apex Legends and Halo: The Masterchief Collection, and while it is a good safety measure, it is unfortunately the reason why you cannot run the game on your Steam Deck.
Sadly, this has become a common issue for gamers who play on Valve’s handheld, as Easy Anti-Cheat has been embedded into numerous popular titles. However, if you really know your way around Steam Deck’s software, there is another less intuitive and tedious way to run this trending shooter.
While you cannot run the game natively on the Deck’s Steam OS, the console’s versatility means, you can dual-boot your native Steam OS and Windows and use the latter operating system to run games that are incompatible with Proton. Although this is quite a complex process, it is certainly worth trying if you wish to explore the potential of your handheld console.
Youtuber Deck Wizard has done exactly this, which has allowed them to run the game even reaching over 60 frames per second with FSR 2.0 enabled. There are frame drops and stutters, especially when scaling through the map with huge jumps or switching from open to closed areas and vice versa. However, switching the render scaling method to TAAU seems to provide an even more consistent framerate, although there is a noticeable drop in quality. The experience seems to be totally playable unless you are the type of player who is easily distracted by such inconsistencies.
While more and more developers are starting to support their games on the Steam Deck, we hope to also see Embark Studios allow players to natively experience their shooter on this handheld console.
