Bilawal Bashir 
With the release date for the next big monster-bashing game announced, fans are wondering about Monster Hunter Wilds on Steam Deck and whether it’ll run on portable machines.
Capcom’s previous Monster Hunter titles, World and Rise, work well on Valve’s handheld. The 2018 Monster Hunter World was released on home consoles and PC. The title was built on the MT Framework Engine, which scales well on the Steam Deck. Meanwhile, Monster Hunter Rise was made for Nintendo Switch, a less powerful handheld. Both games provide a smooth experience on the Steam Deck.
Monster Hunter Wilds will be bigger and denser than previous games in the long-running series. The higher fidelity assets and more in-game systems result in a technically demanding game. Playing it on Steam Deck would be possible, but it will be a challenging experience for now.
Can you play Monster Hunter Wilds on Steam Deck?
Monster Hunter Wilds will technically be playable on Steam Deck, but many will find its performance prohibitively bad.
The latest monster-hunting title from Capcom runs in the RE Engine. This engine has been the standard across all of Capcom’s biggest releases in recent years. The Resident Evil 4 remake used the same engine and ran well on Valve’s hardware. The survival horror game is a closed-level title that doesn’t need to render a large open world. Similarly, Street Fighter 6 is built in RE Engine and is able to maintain a steady 60 frames per second with the right settings.
Unfortunately, a more direct comparison would be Dragon’s Dogma 2, an open-world RPG made on the RE Engine. Dragon’s Dogma 2 runs terribly on the portable PC, which likely indicates some tough times ahead for Monster Hunter Wilds. As of this writing, after the Steam Deck’s 3.7 update, Dragon’s Dogma 2 on bare minimum settings peaks at around 25 frames per second but is often below 20.
Even after months of updates and patches to Dragon’s Dogma 2, gamers will still struggle to maintain 20 frames per second with uniformly low settings. Barring a breakthrough by Capcom.
Mods may make Monster Hunter Wilds good on Steam Deck
Monster Hunter Wilds will likely be made playable on Steam Deck, or potentially good, through the use of mods.
Given Monster Hunter’s greater popularity, Capcom could put more effort into optimizing the game for portable PCs. Monster Hunter has a long history of running on handheld hardware, so this would be possible. Steam Deck is also quite popular in Japan, a country that has long been the home of AAA portable gaming. Getting official support from developers would be one of the best ways to run Monster Hunter Wilds on Steam Deck.
If Capcom can’t do the job, modders have demonstrated that they can do the company’s job for them. Frame generation mods for Dragon’s Dogma 2 helped push the standard version of the game from 15 to 25 FPS to 35 to 45 FPS. This made the game a much more playable experience.
Monster Hunter Wilds will likely receive the same treatment. Other mods like lower vegetation, texture changes, and LOD mods can help smooth out the experience further. However, all of this can be done only after Monster Hunter Wilds releases next year. The day-one version of the game will likely be a rough ride.
