By Gears of War: E-Day is now out in advanced access ahead of its full launch on 6 October, and I’ve been putting The Coalition’s origin story for the series through its paces on the Steam Deck. If you’re planning to play exclusively on the Deck, I’d hold off for now. In its current state, this one is a real struggle on Valve’s handheld.
Campaign performance
Starting in the campaign on balanced settings, the frame rate struggles to get above 20 FPS even when there’s very little happening on screen. Switching upscalers doesn’t make a meaningful difference either. I tried both XeSS and FSR, and even with FSR 4 on balanced and every setting dropped to its absolute lowest, I was barely managing 20-plus frames per second in basic scenarios. Changing settings also takes a while to apply, as the game seems to update them live.
It’s clear the game needs more optimization, and it’s a long way from what we saw in some of the early footage from the multiplayer beta.
Multiplayer is no better
I was hoping multiplayer might fare better, but I’m afraid it doesn’t. Performance sits below 20 FPS most of the time, occasionally edging slightly ahead of the campaign, but nowhere near a smooth experience. It’s technically playable, but getting anything decent out of it is very challenging.
The bigger problem is how it feels. Aiming in Gears already has a certain weight and overrun to it, and when you add the input latency and slight lag that comes with these frame rates in online matches, it becomes a very frustrating experience.
What about GeForce NOW?
Gears of War: E-Day is set to come to GeForce NOW, which could be a great way to play it on the Steam Deck, but it hasn’t been onboarded to the service just yet. Once it is, I’ll be giving that a try.
Final thoughts
If the Steam Deck is your only way to play, this is a case of waiting to see what patches arrive. Hopefully we’ll see some optimization soon, and I’ll give it another look once it’s had some updates and lands on GeForce NOW. Let me know if you’re diving into E-Day and where you’ll be playing it.
