The First Descendant is playable on Steam Deck, despite some temporary compatibility confusion

Besides giving The First Descendant the ol’ benchy marks on desktop, I was curious to see how this gleaming looter shooter would run on the less flexing hardware of the Steam Deck. The answer: it didn’t, at first. Luckily, a semi-quick fix was enough to get me in, where I found a game that for all its ray tracing inclinations, is comfortable with life on the Deck. Reasonably. Most of the time.

With any luck, my issue could be purged completely by the time The First Descendant releases on July 2nd. Partly because I was using a technically non-final preview build, and partly because the problem itself was a silly one: launching was blocked by a case of missing Visual C++, something that the Steam Deck’s Proton compatibility witchcraft usually takes care of. Come on, Proton lad, you’re kinda dropping the ball here.

If this ever happens to you, in The First Descendant or any other game, I heartily recommend YouTuber JD Ros’ video tutorial on fixing it. The method boils down to installing the latest C++ versions via the Steam Deck’s Desktop Mode, then adding their executables to the game’s launch options. This worked a treat for me, and I didn’t suffer any further compatibility headaches from there on out.

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