Steam Deck Valorant - How to play, best settings, and more

With Valve’s powerhouse handheld making the rounds, online shooter fans are curious if they can play Valorant on Steam Deck. After all, the hero shooter has stayed a PC exclusive for the longest time and it would make sense if it were playable on the Deck.

Despite the Steam Deck being a powerful (and expensive) device, there are quite a few games that aren’t Deck Verified yet. Sadly, multiplayer shooters also tend to be unplayable due to the constant need for anti-cheat software.

Now we’ll go into detail on whether gamers can enjoy Valorant on the Steam Deck. Is this a multiplayer shooter that PC gamers can actually play on the go? Or will this require the usual amount of fixing?

Can you play Valorant on Steam Deck?

Like Destiny 2 and Modern Warfare 2, players cannot access Valorant on Steam Deck, at least not easily. Unsurprisingly, this is due to the constant need for anti-cheat software to make sure that people won’t hack the game and give themselves advantages.

According to Game Voyagers, Valorant runs the Vanguard anti-cheat system and the Steam Deck doesn’t support that. Since it runs on Linux, the Steam Deck isn’t home to much anti-cheat software and developers aren’t willing to release their multiplayer titles on a system that can be abused for cheating.

That being said, PC gamers are a cunning bunch, and there are ways to play Valorant on Steam Deck unofficially. It’s a bit troublesome but those willing to make the sacrifice can play this multiplayer shooter on the portable, albeit, with a price.

• Read more: Steam Deck 2 - Release date, specs, price and more

How to play Valorant on Steam Deck

Gamers that really want to play Valorant on Steam Deck will have to set up dual boot and install Windows on Steam Deck.

It is a bit complicated process, so we wouldn’t advise doing this, but anyone who wants to try it out can find the necessary steps below. Without further ado, here are the steps to make Valorant playable on Steam Deck:

• Connect the USB with the Windows installation on Steam Deck
• Access the Boot Menu by holding the Volume Up, Quick Access, and Power Buttons at the same time
• Pick USB from “Boot Options”
• Choose and continue with the Windows installation
• Delete all Drive Partitions
• Use the Steam Deck trackpad, L2 button key, or the touchpad to finish the Windows installation
• Once the desktop is installed, use L2 to open the display settings
• Switch to landscape mode
• Then got to Steam to install all available drivers

If you are having a hard time following the steps, here is a tutorial video.

Steam Deck Valorant best settings

While players can work around the system to play Valorant on Steam Deck, the system is not immediately compatible with the shooter. Because of this, we went with low-end PC specs to make the shooter somewhat playable on the portable computer.

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If players are willing to play Valorant on Steam Deck, here are the best settings:

• Material Quality: Low
• Texture Quality: Low
• Detail Quality: Low
• UI Quality: Low
• Vignette: Off
• VSync: Off
• Anti-Aliasing: None
• Anisotropic Filtering: 1x
• Improve Clarity: Off
• Experimental Sharpening: Off
• Bloom: Off
• Distortion: Off
• Cast Shadows: Off
• Client FPS: Text Only
• Server Tick Rate: Text Only
• All other options: Hide

And that’s how you can play Valorant on Steam Deck. Personally, we’d rather players wait for the game to get Deck Verified or just play it on their high-end computer. It’s not worth playing the game with these settings but to each their own.

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