After almost 13 years of wait, Alan Wake 2 was finally released on October 27, 2023. And when it was released, it won the hearts of millions, who believed that it was totally worth the wait. However, Steam Deck users experienced the feeling of missing out on Remedy’s blockbuster title since the game wasn’t available on the deck.
Alan Wake 2 is being hailed as one of the best games this year, especially for its storytelling. The game received highly positive reviews pre-launch, which led to the excitement multiplied at the time of launch.
However, unfortunately, it appeared that playing on the Steam Deck was not possible due to the high system requirements needed to launch and run it. But that was not going to stop the PC community from getting their hands on the game.
So officially Alan Wake 2 is not playable on Steam Deck, however, it is playable using some workarounds.
How to play Alan Wake 2 on Steam Deck?
Within almost a day, the PC players got to work and started coming up with solutions to play Alan Wake 2 on Steam Deck. While there are a number of solutions or ways that the community has come up with, there are two ways that are most commonly used and work effectively.
Here is how to get Alan Wake 2 running on the Steam Deck:
Epic Game Store Launcher
To get Alan Wake 2 running on the Steam Deck, players can do it through the Epic Game Store launcher. To do this, players must first switch to Desktop mode and then download the Epic Games Store launcher. Players can then easily launch the game from Steam by adding it to their library as a non-Steam game.
Heroic Launcher
Another way of getting Remedy’s latest title on Steam Deck is through the Heroic Launcher. It is basically an app that combines all of the players’ libraries from a few launchers such as Epic Games Store and GOG. Once the EGS library is accessible on your Steam Deck via the Heroic launcher, players need to download Alan Wake 2.
Once the game is installed players must visit the settings by clicking on the 3 horizontal bars next to the play button and click on the ‘Winetricks option’. In the new pop-up window that appears players must choose the ‘Select the default Wine Prefix’ option. Post that in the new window, players need to select the option to install a Windows DLL or Component. On the next screen players must select three options namely, the dedcompiler_43, 47, and vcrun2022.
This will complete the installation process with Proton tools to force compatibility. The final step is changing the UMA Buffer to 256M. To do this, players must shut off their Steam Deck entirely and then hold the Volume Up button while turning the Deck back on. This will open up the BIOS menu. Here, the Setup Utility, followed by Advanced options will have the UMA Buffer option.
Players are warned that simply because Alan Wake 2 can be played using these tricks does not mean that they should do it mindlessly. Players who have got the game on the Deck don’t have good things to say about the performance. So it is advised to play at your own risk without much expectation.