Valve’s newest hardware venture, the Steam Deck, has proven to be a highly capable handheld gaming device. Many of the latest AAA titles, including the intensive Cyberpunk 2077, run admirably on the mobile console at playable frame rates. As Valve continues to develop its new hardware, developer CD Projekt Red has taken extra steps in supporting the device by adding optimized graphics settings in its update for Cyberpunk 2077.
Cyberpunk 2077 has come a long way since its shaky launch in 2020, receiving multiple patches throughout the past year. The game’s most recent patches, updates 1.5 and 1.52, have been among the most content-heavy patches to arrive, adding new weapons, rebalancing skill trees, and implementing a next-generation graphical update for PS5 and Xbox Series X. CD Projekt Red maintains its commitment to fixing the numerous technical issues surrounding the title and promises that an expansion for Cyberpunk is still on the way.
Owners of Valve’s Steam Deck have noticed that CD Projekt Red has added a Steam Deck optimized graphical setting to Cyberpunk among the usual High, Medium, and Low presets. The Steam Deck graphical preset features a mix of High and Ultra settings with no implementation of Ray Tracing. Graphics options cranked to Ultra include Volumetric Fog and Clouds along with Max Dynamic Decals and Screen Space Reflections. Notably, details about a Steam Deck preset were surprisingly absent from Cyberpunk 2077’s 1.52 patch notes.
Unfortunately, not everything is perfect with these optimized settings, and multiple players report that these presets are, ironically enough, sub-optimal. They say that the Steam Deck preset cannot sustain a locked 30 FPS in the game, with fans better off tweaking the graphics settings to get better performance. CD Projekt Red’s current recommended settings for Cyberpunk 2077 might be too aggressive for the Steam Deck. Still, CD Projekt Red is making an effort to continue tuning its games for a good Steam Deck experience.
So far, Steam Deck’s story has been about community collaboration via self-reporting performance and Valve leading the charge by constantly tweaking and optimizing SteamOS while verifying the playability of every title in Steam’s massive backlog. Game developers have had a mostly hands-off experience in the Steam Deck launch; however, that appears to be changing as the device picks up steam. Cyberpunk 2077 is the first game to embrace Steam Deck optimized settings while Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming is now supported on Steam Deck via Microsoft Edge. These developments could indicate a bright future for Valve’s handheld gaming device.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.