Can you play Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2 on Steam Deck? Compatibility and performance, explained

Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2 is the long-awaited sequel to the hit Ninja Theory game, but is this sequel compatible with the Steam Deck? Not only must you wonder if Valve has Verified it, but can your Steam Deck even handle this Unreal Engine 5 game?

Can you play Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2 on the Steam Deck?

Unfortunately, Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2 has an Unknown rating. Now that Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2 is out for everyone we can see its rating, or in this case its lack of a rating.

Games on the Steam Deck can have four Verification levels: Verified, Playable, Unsupported, and Unknown. While I originally guessed that Hellblade 2 would either be Playable or Verified on launch, it launched with an Unknown rating. This means that it may or may not run well on your Steam Deck, you’ll just have to find out for yourself by installing the game and running it.

Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2 Steam Deck performance, explained

The first game was released in 2017, so the Steam Deck can handle it a lot easier than Hellblade 2. This is due to the jump to Unreal Engine 5 in Hellblade 2, alongside the hefty recommended system requirements for it. Here are the minimum and recommended system requirements:

• Minimum
  • OS: Windows 10/11 64 Bit
  • CPU: Intel i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
  • GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070 / AMD RX 5700 / Intel Arc A580
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Storage: 70 GB (SSD required)
• Recommended
  • OS: Windows 10/11 64 Bit
  • CPU: Intel i7-10700K / AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 / AMD RX 6800 XT / Intel Arc A770
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Storage: 70 GB (SSD required)

If you have a Steam Deck with a smaller SSD like I do, your handheld device may have its fans blowing hard while running this, but you can always jump down to low graphics settings to make it easier to run. But if you have a Steam Deck OLED with the 1TB SSD, you’ll probably be able to run Hellblade 2 without much worry.

It’s also nice to know that Hellblade 2 will launch with full controller support since it’s also releasing on Xbox Series X|S. No need to worry about remapping the controls much! Otherwise, there are plenty of other similar games that make you question whether or not they have Steam Deck compatibility, such as No Rest for the Wicked.