Does Horizon Forbidden West run on Steam Deck?

With Horizon Forbidden West finally on PC after two years since it launched, players are wondering if it will run on the Steam Deck. Here’s everything we know about playing through Aloy’s second adventure on the go.

Aloy’s adventure in Horizon Forbidden West has got a second lease of life. Sony launched the Complete Collection on PS5 and PC, with the PC version hitting Steam and Epic’s stores. Thankfully with it being on Steam, we won’t have to jump through too many hoops to get Horizon on the Steam Deck.

In Horizon Forbidden West, you have a new frontier to discover as you take on the role of Aloy once more. In this sequel, there are bigger fights and new awe-inspiring machines to confront, and the DLC is included too.

With that in mind, here’s everything we know about whether or not Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition will run on the Steam Deck.

Sony Computer Entertainment

Does Horizon Forbidden West run on Steam Deck?

Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition is playable on the Steam Deck, but the game has yet to go through Valve’s verification process.

Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition is finally here, yet Valve hasn’t yet identified how it will run on the Steam Deck. The upcoming PC version of the sequel hasn’t yet received a ‘playable’ or ‘verified’ commendation, and the Steam page currently lists no indication of its compatibility on the handheld.

Despite no official verification status from Valve, the Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition performs well on the Steam Deck. According to Steam Deck Gaming, the sequel can run between 30 – 40 FPS when in a highly NPC-populated town area of the game. To achieve these average frame rates, Steam Deck Gaming had AMD FSR 2.2 set to balanced, with most in-game graphics set to low on a Steam Deck OLED.

While the game is playable on the Steam Deck, Nixxes and Guerrilla will “continue to make optimizations to improve compatibility on handheld PC gaming”, according to a recent release notes post on the Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition Steam page.

When the game’s predecessor, Horizon Zero Dawn, was released on Steam, the PC port itself wasn’t perfect at launch and had to be patched to fix some issues. On the Steam Deck side though, the first Horizon game ran fine after these updates at 30FPS, low settings. You could squeak out a bit more, but it’d cause some issues. We’re hoping that Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition will carry on this torch.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

The Horizon Forbidden West PC requirements demand a hefty 150GB of install space before you can take on the role of Aloy on the Steam Deck. While that’s not usual by today’s standards, it’s still a huge chunk of your handheld’s storage.

Picking up one of the best microSD cards for the Steam Deck will help ensure you have plenty of storage space for Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition and any Steam Deck game you want to play. Especially if you haven’t yet picked up the 1TB Steam Deck OLED or upgraded the SSD.

For more Horizon Forbidden West content, check our guides below:

Horizon Forbidden West review | Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition PC requirements: Minimum & recommended specs | Will Horizon Forbidden West run on Steam Deck? | Horizon Forbidden West: How to destroy Firegleam (Red Crystals) | Horizon Forbidden West: How to apply face paint | How to fix Horizon Forbidden West bricking PS5 | Horizon Forbidden West Explorer vs Guided Mode: What’s the difference? | Is there a Horizon Forbidden West difficulty trophy? How to change difficulties