Can I play Black Myth: Wukong on Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and other gaming handhelds?

Best settings for Black Myth: Wukong on Steam Deck

Given that the official Black Myth: Wukong system requirements have a huge range of different spec recommendations, I was concerned that the game may struggle to perform well on Valve's Steam Deck at first. Following the release of the game's benchmark tool, though, we've found that it actually performs surprisingly well on the handheld in our testing — provided you're willing to turn down its settings, anyway.

In our benchmarking, the Steam Deck achieved an average of 49 frames per second (FPS), with a maximum FPS of 57 and a minimum of 40. These are very impressive results, though something important to note is that the benchmarking tool does not include combat scenes; these — fights against bosses with extremely flashy attacks, specifically — gave me some performance troubles when I was playing the game on PC for my review, so they might cause issues when playing on Steam Deck, too.

As I said before, you'll want to make sure all of Black Myth: Wukong's graphical settings are set to low if you're on Steam Deck, which is what the game automatically defaults to on the handheld. Ray tracing should be off, too, while performance-boosting technologies like Super Resolution and Frame Generation should be enabled and fully turned up to help keep the game as stable as possible.

Performance on Legion Go is even better

Things are looking promising for the Steam Deck, but what about more performant gaming handhelds like the ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, or the new ROG Ally X? We've had the opportunity to run Black Myth: Wukong's benchmark tests on Lenovo's device as well, and the results indicate that users of these systems have an even better experience to look forward to.

In our benchmarks run at Medium settings — a full step up from Low — the Lenovo Legion Go achieved an average FPS of 49, with a maximum FPS of 57 and a minimum of 19. The latter result does indicate that there are a few spots in the game where performance may fall steeply, but given that the average is still quite high, instances of this will likely be brief. If the problem is more significant than expected, however, you can always lower some settings to Low to help combat it.

Again, it's strongly recommended to make use of Super Resolution and Frame Generation, as these tools tend to help a lot when trying to play graphically impressive games like Black Myth: Wukong on any gaming handheld. Ray tracing is also out of the question if you want a smooth and stable framerate, so don't bother trying to make use of it.

Black Myth: Wukong is one of the biggest upcoming games of 2024, and has the potential to be one of the best PC games and best Xbox games (whenever it does finally come to Microsoft's consoles). It's scheduled to launch on Steam, the Epic Games Store, WeGame, and PS5 on August 20, 2024, and preorders for it are live now.

Black Myth: Wukong | $54.39 at CDKeys (PC, Steam)

Though Black Myth: Wukong is undoubtedly a good ARPG overall, its disappointing levels, lackluster enemy variety, and a superfluous loot system all hold it back from being truly great. That said, it's definitely still worth a pickup, especially if you can get it for a discount.

Also see: Epic Games Store | WeGame | PlayStation Store