DOOM The Dark Ages on Steam Deck is a “nightmare” even at “low-quality” and in linear levels

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The highly anticipated game DOOM: The Dark Ages is almost here! In our assessment, we greatly appreciated the game for its intense, brutal, and relentless violence, which we described as an “excessive burst of gruesome, high-intensity action.” If you pre-order the Premium Edition, you’ll get early access to the game a few days before release.

However, if you’re planning on playing DOOM: The Dark Ages on your Steam Deck, t The Dark Ages. Reports suggest that it is problematic even when played at lower quality settings and in less complex areas.

DOOM The Dark Ages is a “nightmare” on Steam Deck

On the Steam Deck, it’s confirmed that DOOM 2016 can operate, while DOOM Eternal is labeled as “playable” but not officially verified. Surprisingly, despite lacking a verification like its predecessor, DOOM Eternal runs smoothly on the Steam Deck even with good graphics settings. Regrettably, at low settings, DOOM The Dark Ages struggles to function properly.

According to SteamDeckHQ’s post, they’ve given their thoughts on how “DOOM The Dark Ages” performs on the Steam Deck. Essentially, it doesn’t run well, but they provide a detailed account of the experience.

The testers played the game on Steam OS version 3.7.6 Preview, as well as the “Bleeding-Edge beta for Proton Experimental”. In their opinion, attempting to play the first chapter at XeSS Quality Mode and low-quality settings at a resolution of 1280×720 was a challenging experience. Given that the initial chapter is a more linear level rather than an expansive part of the game as seen later on, this suggests that the game may have some performance issues.

In one of the less restrictive sections, the source refers to The Siege Part 1 as “one of the more challenging episodes.” However, the results were disappointing for SteamDeckHQ. They could only manage a consistent 30 frames per second by significantly reducing the resolution to 960×540, which made the game appear very fuzzy and pixelated. Despite this, they still experienced occasional drops into the mid-20s.

Unfortunately, DOOM The Dark Ages isn’t functioning optimally on the Steam Deck at this time. While it’s technically playable since you can start it up, the experience isn’t enjoyable as intended. Future updates might address these issues, but there’s no guarantee. So, if your main intention is to play DOOM The Dark Ages exclusively on the Steam Deck, I wouldn’t recommend purchasing it just yet.

If you can enjoy games on your PC or console, we strongly suggest giving the latest DOOM game a try. It’s much like the classic heavy metal, violent action that the series is famous for, but with an even greater scale of chaos and destruction this time around.

In other gaming news, an upcoming new Sonic game is verified for the Steam Deck.

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2025-05-12 17:43