While there was no way to play Once Human on the Steam Deck during its initial closed beta tests, it would appear that Starry Studio seems to have changed their stance on Linux-based operating systems.
It is entirely possible to play Once Human on the Deck – but with certain caveats, which will be discussed below, along with a set of optimized settings.
Optimized Once Human settings for the Steam Deck
For this particular settings breakdown, we will be considering the OLED version of the Steam Deck as a baseline, thanks to its boosted battery life and additional features such as HDR and a 90 Hz display.
Owners of the previous iteration of the Deck need not worry though, as they can expect a similar level of performance on their devices, albeit at the cost of worsened battery life.
The list of optimized Steam Deck settings for Once Human includes the following:
- Display Mode: Fullscreen
- Resolution: 1280×800 (Native)
- Graphics: Low
- Max Frame Rate: Cap this to 60 FPS
- Texture Quality: Low
- Render Scale: 70% to 50%
- Anti-Aliasing: Low
- Shade: Low
- VFX: Low
- Draw Distance: Low
- V-Sync: Off/Disabled
- Motion Blur: Off/Disabled
- Vegetation Density: Low
- Detail: Low
Keep in mind that while Once Human is technically playable, the experience is janky at best – with severe framerate dips even at the 15 W TDP preset. Furthermore, the game does not support gamepad controls as of the time of writing this article, and readers will find themselves unable to control their character while in-game. Turning off Half Rate Shading is also recommended for better text legibility.
How to log into a server in Once Human on Linux systems
For Linux systems (such as the Steam Deck), players may face a peculiar issue while trying to log into a server. The game may crash and absolutely refuse to begin a new game, and the only way to fix this ‘issue’ is to revert to an older Proton version – as detailed by multiple users on ProtonDB.
Make sure to switch to Proton 7.0.6 (accessible under Properties > Compatibility > Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool > Select Proton 7.0.6) in order to bypass the roadblock.
Proton 7.0.6 does come with severe performance problems though, and it is recommended to switch to Proton GE 9.7 to stabilize performance once you are past the initial server selection screen.
