Assassin's Creed Mirage update adds built-in Steam Deck support with automatic optimisation

Ubisoft confirmed ahead of the game's Steam release that Assassin's Creed Mirage would run on the Valve Steam Deck at launch. Now, Ubisoft is taking things one step further, introducing something of a Steam Deck mode, with optimisations to make the game run well on the relatively weak hardware of the Steam Deck. 

According to a recent announcement on the Ubisoft Discord community and the game's Steam Store page, as of an October 29 update Assassin's Creed Mirage will automatically detect when the game is running on the Steam Deck and apply optimised settings to deliver smooth frame rates. Of course, being a PC port, gamers are still able to tweak their settings to their own personal preference after the fact, although Ubisoft asks that players rather not. 

The game will automatically detect your Steam Deck and will run default settings for better performances on this device. We recommend keeping using the proposed presets to smoothly experience Basim's coming of age story on your Steam Deck.

It's currently unclear what settings Assassin's Creed Mirage will default to on the Steam Deck. Overkill found that a healthy mix of medium and low settings — with a high setting here or there — at the Deck's native resolution delivered a smooth 30 FPS, although Ubisoft may be targetting a higher frame rate. It's also unclear how this will affect other Linux gamers playing on more powerful hardware — it may be a good idea to back up the in-game settings prior to the update, just in case. 

This move comes after Ubisoft also announced that, starting with Assassin's Creed Shadows, it will be publishing games on Steam on day one, meaning that even the newest Assassin's Creed games may have the same Steam Deck support going forward.