Black Myth Wukong on Steam Deck looks amazing and runs well, so far

Following the release of the free benchmark tool on Steam, we’ve been able to take a look at how Black Myth: Mukong might run on Steam Deck, and the results are promising.

The Steam Deck is still the best handheld gaming PC, despite not being the most powerful. The inclusion of AMD FSR 3.1 makes what appears to be a graphically demanding experience, based on our desktop results, a more manageable task for this handheld’s limited hardware.

Just following the in-game suggested graphical settings on the Steam Deck OLED returned a result of 51fps as an average, with lows of 38fps and highs of 60fps. I ran the benchmark multiple times to ensure there wasn’t too much volatility in the results, and sure enough, there was very little movement in the numbers each time.

This default option includes AMD FSR upscaling being set to 90, and frame generation being enabled. All graphical settings are set to low other than motion blur, which is set to strong, though the latter is an effect so inconsequential to performance that it’s neither here nor there to leave it on or off.

Pushing the graphical preset to medium brings the game down to a 34fps average with some quite severe stutter. It looks like the low preset will be the only way to go, but it’s worth noting that the game still looks great on the Deck’s 800p display. Moreover, you don’t have to stick to presets. You can tweak the settings to as much as you like to get the best out of the game.

I have already raised some concerns that the Black Myth: Wukong benchmark doesn’t include any combat, especially when we’ve seen in early gameplay videos that it will be a big part of the game. It would have been nice to see how this aspect of the game affects performance ahead of launch, but the current version that shows the stunning visuals of the game’s world still offers some decent insight into how the full game will perform.

For more great titles that work well on Valve’s handheld, check out our list of the best Steam Deck games, where every entry is hand-picked and tested for your peace of mind. You can also read more about how the benchmark tool is pulling in some serious numbers on Steam.