Don’t be fooled by Spider Man 2’s new Steam Deck Verified badge
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was released on Steam last month after over a year of PS5 exclusivity. When the game first launched, many Steam Deck owners wondered how well it would run on their devices. Well, the answer was: not so great. And even though there have been complaints about its performance on the handheld, the game has recently received Verified status on the Steam Deck. This comes as a surprise, and further testing confirms that there’s still a lot left to be desired.
Spider Man 2 doesn’t run well on the Steam Deck despite getting a Verified badge
For those who don’t know, Valve has a system to help Steam Deck users know which games will run well on their devices. This system puts games into three categories: Verified, Playable, and Unsupported.
- Verified means the game runs smoothly on the Steam Deck with no major issues.
- Playable means the game can run, but it might need some tweaks or have small problems.
- Unsupported means the game has major issues and won't work well.
The system is designed to help Steam Deck owners choose games easily. However, some games in the past have received a Verified badge despite running poorly on the handheld, such as Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. It seems Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is another example, as SteamDeckHQ recently tested the game after it was Verified and found that it doesn't run as well as the rating suggests.
SteamDeckHQ noticed that on the default graphics configuration, which the game automatically sets to try and give the best experience possible, there were times when the FPS dropped to 30 and even 28. In heavier scenes, the FPS could drop further, but the game’s inability to maintain a stable FPS suggests it didn't deserve the ‘Verified’ badge yet. To make matters worse, the game also crashed for SteamDeckHQ due to high RAM usage.
Considering how things are at the moment, Spider-Man 2 should probably have a Playable badge instead of Verified, as SteamDeckHQ notes that it can run well after some tweaks and adjustments.
Further testing from Deck Wizard shows visible stutters throughout, especially during combat. Based on the footage below, you can get closer to the 60 FPS mark by utilizing FSR 3.1 Frame Generation, but as we discovered in our testing of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii on the Steam Deck, expect to suffer from an annoying amount of input lag.
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