One of the most anticipated games of 2025 is Assassin's Creed Shadows, the long-awaited sequel to Ubisoft's biggest franchise.
AC Shadows takes full advantage of modern gaming hardware to deliver a truly ambitious action-RPG open-world adventure, which begs the question: can you comfortably play this title on gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, or Lenovo Legion Go?
I tested it myself and came away pleasantly surprised. Assassin's Creed Shadows is an intensive game, but you can have a great time playing it on handhelds — and it'll even support Steam Deck at launch. Here's what you need to know.
If you'd like to know about the game, you can check out my in-depth Assassin's Creed Shadows review.
Can I play Assassin's Creed Shadows on gaming handhelds?
Best answer: Yes! Assassin's Creed Shadows will certainly put your gaming handheld to the test, but the use of AMD's upscaling and frame generation tech allows pretty much all of the major handhelds to run AC Shadows in a more than playable state.
The best experience will be with the most powerful gaming handhelds like the ASUS ROG Ally X, but Assassin's Creed Shadows has been confirmed to be officially supporting the Steam Deck, too, which is one of the weaker gaming handhelds.
The settings you'll want to use when playing Assassin's Creed Shadows
Assassin's Creed Shadows lacks a dedicated preset for gaming handhelds (at least the Ubisoft Connect version), and it did a poor job automatically identifying my handheld's hardware capabilities and adjusting settings.
So, here are the settings I used to enjoy playing Assassin's Creed Shadows on ASUS ROG Ally X (but these settings should be more-or-less the same on all handhelds).
- Native resolution: 1080p (720p on Steam Deck and other low-powered handhelds)
- Preset: Low
- AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution: Enabled, set to Performance
- AMD Frame Generation: Enabled
- Raytraced Global Illumination: Diffuse Everywhere (Diffuse Hideout Only on Steam Deck and other low-powered handhelds)
Using the above settings, the ASUS ROG Ally X benchmarked with a 41 frames-per-second average. Disabling AMD's Frame Generation dropped that framerate down to a measly 23 FPS average, so that setting is necessary for a good handheld gaming experience.
The Lenovo Legion Go and ASUS ROG Ally with the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme and 16GB of RAM should perform similarly, but you'll want to assign 6GB of RAM to the GPU (Assassin's Creed Shadows used around 5.6GB on the Ally X, which has a more generous 24GB of shared RAM).
Less powerful gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck and Lenovo Legion Go S will also be able to play Assassin's Creed Shadows without much issue, but much closer to a locked 30 FPS. The Steam Deck's lower-resolution display will help compensate for its lower 4GB of RAM assigned to the GPU, while the Legion Go S has plenty of RAM to go around.
On any handheld, I recommend playing on the highest wattage performance profile (so you'll want to stay plugged in or accept the hit to battery life), but the most powerful handhelds, like the ROG Ally X, should still be playable on the default performance profiles when off the charger.
Keep reading for my personal experience playing AC Shadows on a handheld!
How's the gameplay experience with AC Shadows on handhelds?
I use the ASUS ROG Ally X with 8GB of RAM assigned to its GPU, which is one of the more optimal handheld gaming setups you can buy right now, so my experience can be considered the "ideal" for AC Shadows on handhelds.
Using the settings described above, I was able easily obtain a stable 40 frames-per-second with few drops or stutters. I was surprised by how smooth AC Shadows seemed to run, even while traveling through foliage-dense areas or placing multiple NPCs on screen at once.
At the very least, I never once saw a dip below 30 FPS. Yes, this is with AMD Frame Generation enabled, but Assassin's Creed Shadows feels smoother at 30 FPS than many other AAA games and Frame Generation doesn't introduce any noticeable latency or unwanted visual artifacts.
As I mentioned above, other gaming handhelds should at least be able to hit 30 FPS, although the Steam Deck may be slightly less stable thanks to its decreased VRAM. Either way, it's more than playable, with consistent and responsive controls for combat and exploration.
Visually, Assassin's Creed Shadows actually looks great on the smaller 7-inch screen of the ASUS ROG Ally. Draw distance isn't nuked in order to sustain that framerate, so you can still enjoy gorgeous vistas while traveling. Pixel peeping screenshots will reveal all the major graphical downgrades, of course, but while playing the game, it looks and feels really good.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
