Star Wars Zero Company Struggles on Steam Deck but Finds Playable Performance on ROG Ally

With the launch of Star Wars Zero Company on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam, players looking to take the game on the go will find vastly different experiences depending on their handheld of choice. Early hands-on testing on both the Steam Deck and the ASUS ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme) reveals that while the game runs reasonably well on the latter, it is currently unplayable in its native state on Valve's handheld.

Steam Deck Struggles and Optimization Issues

On the Steam Deck, Star Wars Zero Company is currently not optimized. Testing on both the Steam Deck OLED running stable SteamOS (using Proton 11 and Experimental) and the Steam Deck LCD running the preview channel yielded poor results. Even with the game's settings lowered to the absolute minimum and using TSR at a 25% internal resolution scale, the frame rate dropped to roughly 11 frames per second during camera movement in battles.

In addition to performance drops—which saw frame rates dipping below 15 fps in later snow environments and struggling to exceed 25 fps in the tutorial—players will encounter functional bugs, such as the Steam Deck's on-screen keyboard failing to appear when prompting character name entry. The game's steep system requirements, which demand 16GB of RAM and a minimum of an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, appear to overwhelm the Steam Deck's 16GB of shared memory. For now, it is recommended that Steam Deck owners avoid running the game natively and instead stream it from a primary gaming PC.

ROG Ally Offers a Playable Alternative

In contrast, the ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme delivers a playable experience out of the box. Running the game on the low quality preset in the 25W turbo mode at 720p with TSR upscaling set to a 70% render scale allows the device to target a relatively stable 30 frames per second, despite some initial Unreal Engine 5-related stuttering that eventually settles.

For those opting to run at 1080p, the 30W turbo mode works best with a 40% render scale using TSR upscaling. Pushing the render scale to 50% at 1080p results in performance drops into the high 20s, while the 25W mode at 1080p experiences similar minor drops. The developer has stated that they are still optimizing the Steam version, but until official patches arrive, the ROG Ally stands out as the superior handheld option for native play.