Steam Deck news is just popping off left and right, especially as we journey closer to launch. Today, Valve released Proton 7.0 and the list of Valve-certified “Verified” and “Playable” games hit 618 titles. To add more fuel to the hype train, the Sentinel Update for the always-improving No Man’s Sky is out. It includes special optimization for Steam Deck and built-in support for AMD FSR!
If there’s two things I love covering, it’s Steam Deck and AMD FSR. So, the developers at Hello Games got my attention.
Writing about the expansive new update, Hello Games says:
“No Man’s Sky has been specially optimised for the Steam Deck, and controls have been adjusted to take advantage of touch screen input.”
The game also introduces specific support for Steam Deck controls, meaning that players will see the correct controller glyphs.
Judging by the embedded video on their blog (above), the new touch input looks pretty natural. For those times when it’s just easier to tap a dialogue choice or navigate your inventory and menus, this is an awesome option to have.
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 (or FSR) also joins the party, and this benefits every No Man’s Sky PC player. But as I’ve pointed out every chance I get, FSR is a fantastic upscaling technology, and the performance benefits are genuinely impressive.
Yes, the Steam Deck does have AMD FSR incorporated on an OS level. But having the developer bake in official support is always going to be the superior option. Especially when it comes to overall image fidelity.
If you can’t get enough Steam Deck content, check out my dedicated category for Valve’s handheld console. And stay tuned for Episode 3 of Games For Everyone!
Also of importance is that multiplayer now works. I’m not sure if this update did it, or if some update to Proton or the new support for anti-cheat programs did, but this is the first time that I can see other players in the space anomaly on Linux.
That’s odd, I swear I’ve seen other players before this update! Really glad it’s working for you though.