Monster Hunter Wilds now available on GeForce Now, offering a clever solution for enhanced Steam Deck performance.

Trying to run Monster Hunter Wilds on the Steam Deck is a futile endeavour, as is trying to run it on any other PC hardware that might variously be called cheap, old, or otherwise low-end. However, today’s arrival of the beast-stabbin’, consent-grantin’ RPG on Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming platform does enable a sort of bodged alternative: a way to play Wilds on this most modest of handhelds, potentially at a sturdy 60fps.

GeForce Now extracts a not-insubstantial fee to enable streaming from its best rigs: the Performance (formerly Priority) subscription is £10 / $10 per month for RTX 3060- or RTX 2080-level performance, while the £20 / $20 Ultimate tier provides access to an RTX 4080 system. But it also syncs with your existing Steam library, so if you already own Wilds, you can stream it via GFN at no additional cost. I tried it on the Steam Deck using my Ultimate subscription, and was almost always bumping up against the 60fps cap, even after enabling ray tracing.

For comparison, running under the Steam Deck’s own… well, steam, you’d be lucky to average out a coughing 25fps at potato settings. There is a tiny dash of input lag when steaming, but I found it generally smooth and responsive enough to control as well.

As with any kind of cloud gaming setup, there are other caveats besides the sub costs. That responsivity is reliant on a fast and stable Wi-Fi connection – if you have patchy spots in your house, or sluggish Internet in general, you run the danger of higher latency and/or impaired visuals from the slowed-down video feed. It also means that taking your Steam Deck out and about, as it was designed for in the first place, will oblige your monsters to remain unhunted unless you can find (and trust) some decent Wi-Fi in the wilds.

As such, I wouldn’t call streaming a fix for Wilds’ dodgy Deck performance, though for sofa/toilet-based playing at home, it does make for a happier marriage of game and hardware than installing and running it locally. And the possibility at least exists – unlike with Steam Remote Play – to keep going round a friends’ house or in a hotel room. Small victories, ‘suppose.