The Witcher 3 looks to run fine on a Steam Deck

While Valve yesterday were busy cracking open a Steam Deck, CD Projekt Red showed us a game actually running on one. They’ve posted a series of short videos of them playing The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt on Valve’s handheld PC and yup, that seems to run well enough. The game might be a few years old now, but it’s still one of best RPGs—and honestly the sort of endless sprawling game I might rather play on-and-off on a handheld.

Here’s Geralt riding on a horsey into town (many folks came out from miles around):

Open a portal into the world and play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt wherever you go once Steam Deck is out!

Check out the footage of the current-gen version of the game running on Steam Deck 👇 pic.twitter.com/3IdIC2zGZJ

— The Witcher (@witchergame) October 6, 2021

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And engaging in a spot of violence:

pic.twitter.com/f1MnMBUgSY

— The Witcher (@witchergame) October 6, 2021

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Then stomping over gardens:

pic.twitter.com/tUvti9lrAP

— The Witcher (@witchergame) October 6, 2021

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I skipped huge chunks of The Witcher 3 because god, it’s a lot, and it got too repetitive. But I’d happily multitask my way through those parts on the sofa, ticking off side-quests with the telly on in the background or something. No, I don’t want to buy a Nintendo Switch.

Valve plan to launch the Steam Deck at some point after the end of June 2022. It’ll come in three variants differentiated by storages, screens, and extras. The cheapest is a 64GB eMMC model at £349, with the £459 option having a 256GB NVMe SSD, and the top end at £569 offering a 512GB NMVMe SSD and “premium anti-glare etched glass”. You can reserve one now with a £4 deposit on Steam, then Valve expect to to start actual orders in December.