These Hands on Deck: How is Dead Space 2008’s Performance on Steam Deck?

You may have noticed this by now, but here at Prima Games, we love the Steam Deck. Personally, I can’t get enough of handheld gaming in general, whether it’s on a Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, or hell, even a Logitech G Cloud. But there’s no way around the fervor over the big ol’ Valve Brick. So I’m trying something. We’ve done plenty of “does videogame run on Steam Deck?” guides, but what about something with a more conversational approach?

So here’s the pitch. These Hands on Deck will be all about one person’s journey through the Steam library to find out which games are great experiences on Steam Deck. Current games, older games, random games I just felt like trying for no reason, emulators, and whatever else comes to mind are all eligible. And this won’t be some Framerate Police or cascading numbers in a black box that barely mean anything analysis kind of deal. You can get that anywhere. These Hands on Deck is all about vibes. And speaking of vibes, I heard there’s a new horror game out that’s also a look back at a beloved old horror game.

The Dead Space remake just came out, and day one isn’t the best time to look into Steam Deck performance for brand-new AAA joints. We checked it out anyway, of course, but that piece won’t be the final word. But what about the original Dead Space? The 2008 original may have started as a direct response to the Resident Evil 4 flashpoint, but it ended up being a renowned classic in its own right. And hey, that makes it almost as topical as the new version!

While it’s an older game and that can come with some difficulties, Dead Space 2008 is a “Verified” game for Steam Deck. So that’s excellent news for people who want to have a great experience out of the box, so to speak. And, for the most part, it is indeed great out of the box, because everything in the settings defaults to high. I did notice, however, the moment I booted the game up it was running at a 4:3 resolution. It’s an easy enough fix, but a fix you have to go and make yourself. The default brightness is also pretty high, which, again, is easy to fix.

Outside of settings, one thing I really noticed playing Dead Space on the Steam Deck is how it’s a perfect game for showing off the analogue sticks. I hadn’t really played a “shooter” before on my Steam Deck yet, and I was shocked at how easy a time I had lining up shots for this game’s dismembery mechanics. It’s a real testament to how good those sticks are, even by default. I’m sick and tired of those stupid “Switch vs Steam Deck” comparisons, but when it comes to playing shooters, I can’t help but go down that path myself. Steam Deck got good sticks, y’all.

Got a game you wanna hear about on Steam Deck without scrubbing through a bunch of numbers and minutiae in YouTube videos? Let me know what game you want to see me tackle next with These Hands on Deck here at Prima Games! Otherwise, I’ll just pick something that looks neat, I guess.