Valve’s Steam Deck is due to hit shelves next month, and the company has announced that the portable PC will feature Dynamic Cloud Sync, allowing players to jump between PC and handheld saves. All players will need is an internet connection to boot up their save on either device. This will also work when simply putting the Steam Deck into suspend mode without fully exiting a game. Putting the handheld PC into sleep mode will trigger the feature, instantly uploading “all modified save game data” to the cloud.
Seamless cloud saves is something other developers have struggled with in the past, and Valve will have to manually enable Dynamic Cloud Sync in their games. This could take a while, but even if the feature isn’t enabled, Steam will be tracking progress made on the Steam Deck. According to a blog post from the company, it will just take a little extra work to swap between systems. “Any user who suspends their Deck while your game is running and then tries to resume that game on a different device will be prompted to first return to their Deck to close the running process or continue without their most recent save game progress,” the company explained.
One thing to note: sharing a modded save between the Steam Deck and PC might corrupt the file, or simply not work at all.
The Steam Deck was initially set to launch in December 2021 and was later delayed until February 2022 due to supply issues caused by the ongoing pandemic. Earlier this month, a representative from Valve stated that the devices were now on track to release next month regardless of these issues.
The Steam Deck is currently on schedule for a February 2022 release. The Steam Database currently allows players to see a list of games with an official Steam Deck compatibility rating, and as of last week, over half of the Steam catalog was said to “work flawlessly.”