Metal Gear Solid: Delta Snake Eater is clearly a fantastic game with some minor issues. At the time of writing, Virtuous studios’ remake of Hideo Kojima’s late 2004 masterpiece is sitting at a high 80s score on Metacritic – just a few points shy of the original’s 91 rating.
Critics praised the team for keeping the elements and soul of the original game whilst adding more modern gameplay, most notably through the ability to play Delta in an over-the-shoulder perspective. Across the board performance seems to be holding up, just about, on PC at least, thanks in part to a 60FPS cap, which some people have already figured out a workaround for. On console, it’s more of a mixed bag, with the PS5 version in particular under a lot of fire for both frame rate dops and the PS5 Pro version’s use of PSSR, resulting in what some are claiming is a blurrier presentation.
But these minor performance woes, which will almost certainly be improved with a patch, pale in comparison to those trying to play the game on Steam Deck. But are you really that surprised? After all, it’s Unreal Engine 5 – an engine that stresses even the most competent of hardware (to a point). If you are brave enough to give Delta a go on the Valve’s handheld, you’re in for a rocky ride.
After all, it’s Unreal Engine 5 – an engine that stresses even the most competent of hardware
For one, as this rather brilliant video review shows, expect framerates at well below 30 FPS – making Naked Snake feel like he’s running in slow motion. And that’s with nearly every single setting turned to low. At 400p, Delta veers into the ‘sort-of-playable’ mark, but that’s if you want a game with no shadows. Thought not…
If you’re just wanting to see what sort of FPS you can get on the Deck with everything cranked a little bit higher, then you’re in for around 22FPS. But again, while some can argue that the team could have done better here, the clues were evident all the way through that Delta was going to struggle to run. As a bare minimum, the system requirements state you’re going to need a RTX 2060 Super or equivalent. When facing off with the Deck’s aging APU there is really no contest, despite the fact that RAM requirements are within the handheld’s bandwidth.
Then there’s the historical performance of Unreal Engine 5 games on Steam Deck. Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl is another title that is not recommended to play via the handheld due to its poor performance. To get, at best, an unstable 30FPS, you’re going to need to scale everything down to the point where the visuals really take away from the experience. And for a game like Stalker, that relies heavily on visuals to immerse the player, it’s simply not worth it.
Delta, sadly, serves as a reminder of the limitations of the Steam Deck. It’s still a fantastic machine, but it’s clear that a lot today’s crop of games are just outside of its bandwidth – especially as more adopt Unreal Engine 5.