Steam Deck 2: release date speculation, specs, pricing

It’s a matter of when we’ll see the Steam Deck 2, not if we’ll see it. Valve has talked publicly multiple times about its plans for a next-gen Steam Deck, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given that the original is easily the best handheld gaming PC you can buy.

Although the Steam Deck 2 is still a few years off, Valve has been dropping hints about the handheld for a while. Here’s everything we know about the Steam Deck 2 right now, from the possible release date to details on specs and performance.

Steam Deck 2: release date speculation

It’s going to be a few years before we see the Steam Deck 2. In an interview with CNBC and The Verge, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais said, “… changing the performance level is not something we are taking lightly, and we only want to do so when there is a significant enough increase to be had. We also don’t want more performance to come at a significant cost to power efficiency and battery life. I don’t anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years.”

Griffais said this in the context of performance targets. He added that the company wants to ensure that the gameplay experience is consistent across devices. In other words, Valve doesn’t want to move the performance goalposts for developers and players for no reason. There would need to be a chip that’s significantly more powerful than what is available today for a Steam Deck 2 to come out, Griffais said.

Adding on to that, Valve’s Lawrence Yang told Rock Paper Shotgun that “a true next-gen Deck with a significant bump in horsepower wouldn’t be for a few years.”

It’s clear Valve is thinking about the future of the Steam Deck. We recently saw the Steam Deck OLED upgrade, for instance, and these interviews show that the company is looking for a more powerful chip to power a potential Steam Deck 2.

At this point, I’d guess that a Steam Deck 2 would arrive in 2026. That’s just a