Updated:

Jan 8, 2026 3:38 am

Posted:

Jan 8, 2026 3:34 am

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X and X2 processors may finally have access to Fortnite and Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat, but despite how much Qualcomm is trying to push gaming on the Snapdragon platform this year, I just don’t care.

Fortnite runs on smartphones, after all. And while Easy Anti-Cheat opens up a whole new slate of games for Snapdragon X-series laptops, most of the titles we’ve seen running on Qualcomm systems aren’t exactly GPU intensive. Baldur’s Gate 3 was one of the bigger games shown on the original Snapdragon X Elite platform, though performance on Qualcomm’s reference designs hardly held up when compared to actual consumer systems.

And at CES 2026, Qualcomm was showing off its new high-end Snapdragon X2 Extreme chip running Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider in 2026?

Look. I love Shadow of the Tomb Raider. It’s a great game. It’s a great benchmark. But the game hit gaming PCs way back in September 2018 – over 7 years ago. It was a graphically intense game back on the RTX 2080. While it is impressive to see how smooth the game runs on integrated GPUs at 1080p and High graphics settings these days, it’s not exactly a bragging point.

Especially when AMD was running Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 at over 30 fps native on the Lenovo Legion Go 2’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme last year, and Intel is showing off thin and light Panther Lake laptops running Battlefield 6 with frame rates hitting over 200 fps (though that is with multi-frame generation).

While Qualcomm’s reference design Snapdragon X2 Extreme laptop did have Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth: Wukong installed, neither game was running for the press demos. Instead, the company wanted to talk about using AI voice changing features while gaming, rather than talk performance.

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Integrated GPU Performance Matters Most on Handhelds

When it comes to iGPU gaming, handheld gaming PCs are king. While I love being able to play some games on a general consumer or business laptop because I’m a monster, few people are going to use a Lenovo Yoga or Dell laptop for gaming.

And when it comes to handhelds, well. AMD got an early lead in the handheld market, and Intel is still trying to claw out space for itself. Qualcomm hasn’t even tried. At this point, it’s probably too late. Between the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, Intel Lunar Lake, and the recently teased Intel Panther Lake handheld chips, Qualcomm’s opportunity to get a Snapdragon handheld out on the market has passed.

iGPU Gaming Only Goes So Far

While every gaming handheld around right now is an iGPU machine, no one is going to buy a general consumer laptop for gaming. Since Qualcomm doesn’t have a handheld, this makes the Snapdragon X platform’s lack of discrete GPUs even more obvious.

After all, a Microsoft Surface Laptop isn’t a gaming device. If it can run games, cool. But it’s not a gaming platform. Sure, Qualcomm laptops can now utilize AMD FSR and Qualcomm’s custom Snapdragon Game Super Resolution upscaling features, but it’s just not enough reason to care. Between having no handhelds, using reference design laptops that won’t hit the market, and not talking actual performance expectations using modern game titles, Snapdragon gaming isn’t any more compelling than it was last generation.

Madeline (She/Her) is a contributing writer at IGN. She’s been writing about comics, tech, and gaming since 2013. Her byline has appeared at sites like Laptop Mag, PCMag, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, CGMagazine, and Bleeding Cool.