Assassin’s Creed (AC) Black Flag is fondly remembered as the Pirate Assassin’s Creed game. Featuring massive-scale ship-versus-ship battles in the open seas, this game brought the series to a brave new frontier and is possibly one of the best AC games of all time. Since it is published by Ubisoft, it unfortunately has a lot of issues. We don’t mean just bugs and glitches, we mean issues with compatibility. Since the release of the Steam Deck, there have been multiple reports of this game crashing or freezing on the Deck. So, if you are encountering the same, consider reading this guide until the end for workarounds on how to fix it.
Ubisoft as a company has had a pretty rough history with their games. While they do make some of the most popular open-world/story-driven games out there with the likes of AC, Far Cry, and Watchdogs, the company has a track record of not listening to player feedback and the general bugginess of their games. All of these complaints aside, it is the responsibility of the developer to solve issues that their game is facing with alternative platforms when it is playable on those platforms. By this, we do not mean support officially but the basic patches or compatibility updates will do. Anyway, in the absence of any official fix, here are the workarounds you can try.
AC Black Flag Steam Deck Black Screen issue: Is there any fix yet?
Since Ubisoft has declared that the game is not officially compatible with the Steam Deck, there are no officially available solutions or support for this issue. It is still ranked Gold (Playable) on ProtonDB but the developers insist that there is no official compatibility. Keeping this in mind, there are some basic workarounds and fixes you can try to fix it:
1). Restart the device
The most basic step is to restart the Steam Deck by pressing the power button for 10 seconds or more. A hard restart will solve a lot of software issues that might be restricting the game from launching properly.
2). Verify the game files
Make sure there are no corrupt game files. To do this, follow these steps:
- Open Steam, go to Library, and right-click/select the Options button on AC Black Flag’s Steam page.
- Now, select Properties.
- After this, go to the Installed Files tab.
- Then, click on the Verify Integrity of Game Files option.
Wait for the check to complete and restart the device. This will manually reinstall any corrupted files for the game and make sure it works as intended.
3). Change Proton Version
If you are using a Porton version that is not Experimental, change to Proton Experimental. To do this, open Steam, go to Library> AC Black Flag (Options)>Properties>Compatibility>Force Proton Option. Here, select Proton Experimental from the drop-down menu, and once selected, you should be able to play the game as intended.
4). Reinsert the SD Card
If the game is installed on an external SD card, reinsert it. Make sure to clean it so that there is no dust or dirt on the contact points of the SD cards. If the issue persists, consider reinstalling the game on your Deck’s internal storage.
This is all we have on how to fix the Black Screen issue in AC Black Flag on Steam Deck. If you find this guide helpful and want to read more such content, make sure to visit Android Gram daily.
