Can you play Assassin’s Creed Origins on Steam Deck?

The Steam Deck is up and running for first-round reservation holders and with it comes hundreds of verified games to play. But not every major title will be compatible with the Steam Deck right out of the box. In fact, many titles from beloved publisher and developer Ubisoft may not work as intended on the Steam Deck.

The Assassin’s Creed franchise is one of Ubisoft’s biggest claims to fame, but the 2017 reboot Assassin’s Creed Origins hasn’t been verified by Valve at launch. Checking the Steam Deck Verified games list, Assassin’s Creed Origins is listed as Playable, meaning it comes with some caveats. The game was tested on Feb. 18 and is noted as having compatibility warnings and potential issues with the launcher and/or setup. However, videos of Assassin’s Creed Odyessy show the Origins sequel running at 30fps during a large battle.

While it doesn’t look like Ubisoft is giving the Steam Deck its full support out of the gate, there could be room for that relationship to grow, according to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot.

“We’re happy to see Steam Deck coming to the industry,” said Guillemot in a 2021 investor call via Rock Paper Shotgun. “It shows that there continues a flow of very innovative new hardware coming to the market and so we will look and see how big it becomes. If it is big we will be able to put our games on it.”

Guillemot’s statement is hardly cause for celebration, it’s much more optimistic than Epic CEO Tim Sweeney’s Fornite on Steam Deck forecast, in which he simply says “no”.

Valve has only dipped its toe into verifying the Steam catalog and while many games may not be deemed a great experience on the Steam Deck via the Great on Deck page, the handheld still has its whole life ahead of it to become more accommodating.

If you need to check your Steam library’s compatibility with the Steam Deck, check out the Great on Deck page or use the CheckMyDeck tool with the help of this guide.