The Steam Deck Can Emulate PS4 and Bloodborne

The Steam Deck is an awesome handheld PC. For a lot of reasons, it’s versatile, comfortable to use and has native Steam support. But what many don’t realise is that the Steam Deck is an emulation powerhouse. It benefits from a long history of Linux emulation. Recently the Steam Deck has been receiving PS4 emulation updates. The latest makes Bloodborne playable at an almost perfectly steady 30FPS. 

As shared by the folks over at Tech4Gamers, Bloodborne is now playable on the Steam Deck at 30FPS. This is thanks to the work of the emulation community and ShadPS4 the PlayStation 4 emulator being used to accomplish this task. 

ShadPS4 has received multiple updates and with each, the quality of the emulation has improved. Now a YouTuber called Deck Wizard has uploaded a video of Bloodborne being played at a very steady 30FPS. The game looks to be perfectly playable. There are some small stutters as larger areas load but the experience will likely improve as play continues and shaders cache. 

Bloodborne being playable on the Steam Deck is a nice reprieve for fans, the game is turning ten soon and there have been very few official updates or ports. Bloodborne is now playable on a variety of platforms, thanks to the work of the community. That’s the great thing about emulation, it preserves the game so that you can play it on any device you own. So if that old PS4 gives up the ghost or boot loops, the emulation community has you covered. 

That’s one of the main reasons that emulation and game preservation are so important. Physical media has a limited lifespan. That’s not just the discs and cartridges you own but also the hard drives on most of your devices. Without the option to back up and emulate many of those amazing games could fade into obscurity.

If you’d like to check out the gameplay video from Deck Wizard you can do so below. If you’d like to find out more about Nintendo’s war on emulation, click here.