Is Manor Lords playable on Steam Deck? Answered

The highly-anticipated city builder and strategic simulator from Slavic Magic is up for us to enjoy. Will you be able to play Manor Lords on your Steam Deck without breaking a sweat or will you have to do some sort of arcane magic ritual to make it run? Let’s find out.

Can you play Manor Lords in your Steam Deck?

While the game is on Early Access and some mechanics and implementations are pending, and even if Manor Lords isn’t verified for the Steam Deck, the truth is that the game plays decently on Valve’s portable console. However, to get it running, you will probably have to do some minor to major tweaks on your device for the game to be playable both on the performance and gameplay side.

Regarding the performance, all reports suggest that playing the game in Low graphical settings at a 1280×800 resolution – Steam Deck’s default resolution – will render a comfortable playing experience, even providing a steady 60 fps experience. For a game of its kind, it surely sounds like Manor Lords will be quite an enjoyable experience. However, don’t you celebrate victory just yet.

You see, one of the downsides of playing Manor Lords on the Steam Deck is the fact that the text size can make reading tutorial texts and overall game UI very difficult. However, you can change this by accessing the Language & Accessibility tab in the Settings menu and fiddling with the Interface Scale slider – which is also the only accessibility option available at the moment.

Not only that but the game suffers from controller compatibility issues, forcing you to use external software to set keybinds for your Steam Deck buttons or have you play the game relying heavily on the Steam Deck’s touchscreen and touchpads. Hopefully, once the game continues to be updated, we will have more content and – more importantly – more Steam Deck features that will make Manor Lords much more enjoyable on the go.