I'm curious about Deck as well, it's still listed as "Unsupported" for Deck (which I already speculated would be one of the benefits of this apparent remake/remaster,) but it seems like it is playable more or less. (I'm curious if Kupfer reached whatever roadblock or issue which caused it to not flip from "Unsupported" to "Playable" in Steam's verification process? Surely it was a big enough game to go through the process. Maybe it was a minor yet flaggable issue, but Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat also are flagged Unsupported, not just blank for untested.)
It's a heavy-playing game without that twitch play that you'd usually associate with a portable, but I actuallly like slow and methodical games on a handheld where I can sit comfortably and focus rather than sitting at a desk with a PC, so Deck might be a good way to play this if it worked out.
To that I can say that SoC works right out of the box. No tinkering with any versions, patches or the like.
As I said, the performance is consistently smooth and I had no problems of a technical nature.
I think the reason S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is so neglected is that it has quite complicated/keyboard-based controls. There are more commands than the Deck has buttons.
It took me about half an hour to set up the controls so that they work well and I didn't have to give up anything.
This includes
- quick use of bandages,
- quick use of medipacks,
- quick save,
- quick load,
- crouch,
- deep crouch (prone),
- open map,
- open PDA,
- call the menu,
- lean left,
- lean right,
- drop weapon,
- pick up items,
- reload,
- change ammo type,
- flashlight,
- night vision,
- sprint,
- use,
- quickly switch between weapons,
- switch between all weapon slots,
- open inventory,
- left mousclick click and right mousecklick in inventory,
- aim down sights
and I'm sure I'm forgetting some more.
However, you can configure the controls to double-assign some buttons via normal keypress and long keypress (to differentiate between using bandages and medipacks. For example "use" (x) and "reload" (longpress x), or flashlight (press D-pad up) and night vision (long press D-pad up). Same for open PDA, open map and so on. This helped me a lot.
Furthermore, it is useful to bind a radial menu to the left trackpad, which is triggered by touch and release. With this you can cover the keyboard keys 1 - 9 (weapon selection & equipment selection) and it feels like a modern weapon wheel (like in GTA / RDR for example). The right trackpad should remain mouse, because you operate the menu, the inventory and conversations with the mouse. Sometimes you have to drag and drop.
I even had a button for "quick pull out knife and attack" to destroy crates and containers without the need wasting ammunition for it.
Another highlight for me is the possibility to add the gyro function as soon as you aim down sights. This makes aiming much more natural and feels good, especially old PC games without aim assist benefit massively from this (like F.E.A.R.).
So if you have that in mind, take the time to adjust everything to your liking, I see no reason why it's still listed as unsupported and why not to play the game on the Deck. It feels really good and I was able to play through it from start to finish without any problems.
I'm only talking for SoC, I didn't try CS and CoP yet.