Steam Deck compatibility not a priority for The Last of Us Part 1
Hold your spores-es.
With another patch expected today for The Last of Us Part 1 on PC, Naughty Dog has said it is focusing on improving the performance of the game before considering submitting it for Valve's Steam Deck Compatibility Review.
Today's patch will address camera movement and game crashes amongst other fixes. Another patch has been confirmed for Friday by Naughty Dog, which will share details of what the patch contains before it's rolled out.
The Last of Us Part 1's PC port has not been well-received, with the game gaining largely negative reviews on Steam at launch. Naughty Dog responded to the criticism by promising to address issues in patches.
While Naughty Dog continues to patch the issues present in the PC port, the studio has also addressed the game's performance on Steam Deck. "While we know many of you would to play The Last of Us Part 1 on Steam Deck, we are prioritising fixes and patches before submitting it for verification," the studio tweeted.
In its current state, Steam Deck owners have had little success in getting stable performance, with framerates barely hitting 30FPS. Reading through Digital Foundry's analysis on much better specced PCs, it's not surprising to see the Steam Deck struggling to run the game.
In December 2022, writer Neil Druckmann assured fans The Last of Us Part 1 would be Steam Deck compatible. "Don't worry!" he tweeted. When that will be is unclear, as it seems Naughty Dog will be focusing on improving the game's performance to "the Naughty Dog quality" expected, before considering optimisations for Steam Deck.