Fallout 76 is one of the best ways to experience the Fallout series, but does it run on the Steam Deck? Here’s everything you need to know.
With the Fallout TV show finally out in the wild, many fans new and old may want to dive into the Fallout franchise head-on. Luckily, just about the entire Fallout game catalog, including Fallout 76, is available on Steam and can be played on the Valve Steam Deck.
While there hasn’t been a brand-new mainline game in the series since Fallout 4, Fallout 76 is still a stand-out entry in the series. It had a rocky release, but Fallout 76 has gone on to garner its fair share of attention as one of the best Fallout gaming experiences, and better yet, you can play Fallout 76 on the Steam Deck and explore the post-apocalyptic Appalachia on the go.
Can you play Fallout 76 on Steam Deck?
Fallout 76 performs well on the Steam Deck and has been given a “playable” commendation from Valve.
Fallout 76 blasted onto Steam as being unsupported on the Steam Deck. However, in the six years since the online multiplayer game of the franchise has been out, it has gone through Valve’s verification system again and received a “playable” status.
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According to Steam, Fallout 76 misses out on being fully verified due to some text being ineligible, and some points in-game requiring the use of a keyboard. Through our own testing on a Steam Deck OLED, we discovered this to be the case, however, you can bring up the built-in Steam Deck keyboard through the combination of a few button presses.
When playing Fallout 76 on the Steam Deck, we recommend turning all the in-game settings down to low, which should give you a consistent 30FPS. With the game settings lowered, we were able to play Fallout 76 between 30 to 40 FPS, with the game still performing great on the go. However, with how graphically intensive a game as detailed as Fallout 76 can be, it can still be a drain even on the OLED’s upgraded battery. With that in mind, we recommend ensuring you have the Steam Deck battery close by just in case.
Exploring the wastelands on the go comes at a price to your storage space, as Fallout 76 demands approximately 94.91GB to install on your device. While it could be worse, that’s still a large amount of your storage, especially if you’re sporting an older Steam Deck model.
Picking up one of the best microSD cards for the Steam Deck will help ensure you have plenty of storage space for Fallout 76 and any Steam Deck game you want to play. Especially if you haven’t yet picked up the 1TB Steam Deck OLED or upgraded the SSD.
