Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is finally here for Gold and Ultra edition owners, and it’s been a painfully long wait for this sequel! If you’re gearing up to fight off the massive swarms of Tyranids on your Steam Deck, here’s what you need to know about compatibility and performance.
Does Space Marine 2 Work On Steam Deck?
Well, that’s a loaded question. Does it launch? Yes. Space Marine 2 employs Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), and even though EAC was updated to be compatible with Linux, there’s still that tug of anxiety when booting up any game with anti-cheat for the first time. As you’d expect, SteamOS runs the install script (including Easy Anti-Cheat installation), spends several minutes processing Vulkan shaders, launches an Epic Games script to install dependencies, and finally fires up the game.
I can also happily confirm that the game’s PVP and co-op modes work, meaning EAC won’t be the game’s downfall.
But the real question is: does Space Marine 2 run well on Steam Deck? Unfortunately, no.
Saber Interactive’s Swarm Tech puts heavy demands on the Steam Deck’s aging Aerith APU. This means that to even achieve 30fps, you’ll need to run the game on its Low graphics preset, and crank FSR up to Performance or even Ultra Performance. Even in that configuration, the game’s bustling battlefield, replete with constant explosions, particle effects, and enemy swarms slows the Deck to a crawl. In the 2nd mission, “Skyfire,” I consistently saw erratic frame pacing and drops down to 18fps.
Besides, FSR 2’s “Ultra Performance” setting technically renders the game at 3x lower resolution. That means an internal resolution of roughly 427×267, upscaled to 1280×800. It’s a blurry, shimmery mess. Every resolution and setting I tried couldn’t produce a consistent 30fps.
The blame shouldn’t necessarily be placed at Valve’s doorstep, though. In a recent community update, Saber Interactive says the developers are “working on official Steam Deck support, but it’s not ready yet. We’re currently targeting the end of the year for full Steam Deck support.”
Like Final Fantasy 16 for PC, it’s clearly not optimized for handhelds. Yet.
However, AMD’s FSR 3 will get patched in via a post-launch update. If that brings Frame Generation into the mix, that could easily tip the scales to “Playable.” For now, though, I can’t recommend buying this if Steam Deck is your only system to play it on.
Does Space Marine Work On The ROG Ally?
I can confirm Space Marine 2 is running smoothly right out of the box on my ROG Ally Z1 Extreme with Bazzite, an excellent Linux-based alternative to Windows that is tuned for the ROG Ally hardware.
Using Bazzite’s Turbo TDP setting, I’m seeing about 32fps to 40fps playing at the Low quality preset, and that’s with FSR 2 set to Balanced. AMD FSR remains a necessity here to avoid sub-30fps during combat.
I don’t expect the game to run well on the original ROG Ally, but it should run fine OK on the Legion GO, provided you’re playing at 1080p or below.
