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It doesn't take much scrolling at all to be able to tell that the 2Game editorial team are huge fans of modern PC gaming handhelds. The Steam Deck, in particular, has become a bit of a performance baseline for us, and we test most of the recent games on the device, just to see how they pan out. More often than not, our testing is met with a resounding success: take Expeditions: A MudRunner Game and Armored Core 6 as examples! Naturally, we couldn't help ourselves with Dragon's Dogma 2, either, and boy howdy have we got bad news on that front.
To begin with, Dragon's Dogma 2 runs awfully across all major platforms. This is not a joke: the game is incredible and we cannot recommend it enough, but at the same time, we also recommend setting the right expectations regarding performance. In cities, in particular, expect sub-30 FPS on mid-range configurations. Even the absolute pinnacle of modern PC gaming hardware, the grail 7800X3D/4090 combo, will not get a stable frame time graph and will feel juddery when push comes to shove.
The Steam Deck, then, never really had any hope of competing. We just had to give it a shot, though.
Play Dragon's Dogma 2 on PC with 2Game!
Will Dragon's Dogma 2 run on the Steam Deck?
Indeed, we're sorry to report that there's just no feasible way to play Dragon's Dogma 2 on the Deck. And this isn't a cheeky oh-it's-30-ish-FPS-so-it-sucks sort of thing, either: we got sub-10 FPS performance at a maximum power draw outside of cities, with the game pummeling the device when reaching a spot with many different NPCs. You will not be playing Dragon's Dogma 2 on the Deck natively as it currently stands.
Further, while we do believe Capcom will - as promised - deliver key performance improvements on PC and console platforms, we're hard-pressed to imagine how the company could double, let alone quadruple the frame rate on Valve's gaming handheld, which is what would be necessary to make it playable. It's going to be nothing short of a miracle if it happens, so we don't expect it to happen.
Our performance results were corroborated by James Archer of Rock Paper Shotgun, mind, so our device isn't just a shoddy one-off. However, there is one thing we recommend you do, if you've got the hardware to support it...
Consider streaming Dragon's Dogma 2 from your main PC to the Deck
In-home streaming is an absolute delight when properly set up, making it almost imperceptible in difference compared to playing the game on a device natively. Whether you're using Valve's first-party Remote Play or a third-party Moonlight sort of solution, streaming games from your desktop PC to the Deck has never been easier than it is today, and we recommend it.
One of the quirks of in-home streaming, of course, is that your main PC and monitor need to both display the image for it to stream to your Deck. However, by using a boondongle such as the one shown in the image above - a dummy Display Port plug - you could create a virtual duplicate of the Steam Deck's 1280x800 display, turn off all of your actual, physical monitors, and stream the game that way!
This is a flawless solution if you want to leverage your powerful desktop PC in a handheld format, and we found it to be remarkably reliable across the board, as your PC simply switches what it thinks the active monitor is, instead of mucking about with on the fly resolution switching, which is a huge hassle if you have a non-standard monitor, such as an ultrawide 21:9 display.
Now, do note that for this to work, you need:
- a reasonably powerful desktop PC, or at least one that runs Dragon's Dogma 2 acceptably well
- good in-home WiFi (the local network, specifically)
And, if you too have a non-16:9 display:
- dummy DP plug
From that point onwards, either consult Steam Remote Play or Moonlight, and you'll be good to go in a matter of minutes.
Get in the Game ! 
