Cloudbreaker on Steam Deck: what to expect
Cloudbreaker plays well on Steam Deck and it targets 30 fps. The controls are the part we are proudest of. The framerate is the part we would rather you know about before you buy than after.
Controls are built for the Deck
Cloudbreaker has full native controller support, and we tuned it on Deck hardware specifically, not just on a controller plugged into a desktop.
No community layout needed. Pick it up and play.
Deck button prompts throughout, including menus and tooltips.
Every screen is navigable on the sticks and face buttons. You never have to reach for the touchscreen, though it works if you prefer it.
The Engine Grid, the most menu-heavy part of the game, was reworked for gamepad. The cursor snaps between slots instead of drifting freely.
UI scale and text size were checked at 1280x800. Nothing you need to read is too small at arm's length.
The on-screen keyboard comes up automatically anywhere the game asks you to type.
Performance: 30 fps is the target
On Deck, Cloudbreaker caps at 30 fps by default. That cap is a decision, not a wall we hit and shrugged at. A locked 30 with even frame pacing reads better in a bullet heaven than an unlocked framerate swinging between 34 and 22 as the screen fills up. If you want to try it uncapped, you can: Settings > Video > Framerate Cap > Off. Early runs will sit above 30. Late runs with a full screen of projectiles will not, and that swing is more distracting than the ceiling is. We recommend leaving the cap on, but it is your call.
Why 30 and not 60
Fair question, especially for a game that looks like this one.
Cloudbreaker renders at 960x540 internally and upscales. Resolution is not the limit. On Deck the cost is simulation rather than pixels: thousands of live projectiles, contact checks against everything on screen, and the Engine Grid recalculating stat interactions as parts fire. That work happens every frame no matter how many pixels we draw, which is why turning the resolution down does not buy you frames here the way it does in most games.
The Deck's APU carries that load well up to a point, and in a late run that point sits closer to 30 than to 60. We could reach 60 by cutting projectile counts or simplifying the grid, and that would be a different, worse game. So we capped it, tuned the frame pacing at 30 until it was smooth, and spent the rest of the optimization budget on holding that cap in the worst case rather than the average one. It holds through boss waves.
Recommended Deck settings
Framerate limit: leave the game at 30 and skip the Quick Access limiter. Setting both does nothing extra.
Refresh rate: 30Hz on LCD. No point in having this above the framerate of the game.
FSR and half rate shading: leave them off. Neither helps, because the game is not pixel bound.
Battery: expect roughly 1.5 hours of handheld play at the default cap.
About the Deck compatibility badge
The store page currently says "Steam is learning about this game." That means Valve's compatibility review has not finished. The timing sits with Valve and we cannot move it along, so we wrote this post rather than leave you guessing.
Something not right?
Post in the Steam discussions or drop into our Discord and let us know.
Ballast Games