Long Gone Days was provided by Serenity Forge for review. Thank you!
Ever since I was young, I have always loved telling stories. Being able to create worlds, characters, and lore from the ground up has been one of my favorite pastimes, and with video games, I loved hearing the stories others wanted to tell. Some of my favorite memories of gaming have come from how gripping a story can be. Kingdom Hearts and God of War have made me cry with how deep they can be. Long Gone Days is another narratively focused game, and I loved it.
The storyline is engaging and kept me wanting to come back for more whenever I set it down. It follows the story of a sniper named Rourke, who discovers that the organization he works for, The Core, is not the noble one he had initially believed. The mystery behind The Core and what comes from it is fantastic, and I love how the story was told in a modern setting with deep, interesting characters. The character development is great, and I love the way the game deals with language barriers when going to other countries. The visuals are fantastic, and I love the contrast between the pixel art and the more detailed character portraits.
Because of the narrative focus of the game, it can feel a bit slow at times, especially when walking around or going through dialog. I wasn't a fan of the combat or RPG mechanics as much either, it was simple and easy, with limited customization, but that isn't the main focus of the game. Walking around could feel jarring at times, too, since you can only walk in 4 directions (use the Dpad), and I am used to games where I could at least move in 8 directions.
However, if you want to experience this amazing story on the Steam Deck, you are in luck.
Long Gone Days runs beautifully on the Steam Deck, hitting 60 FPS the entire time without breaking over 7.5W battery drain. It is almost a perfect experience, but one setting needs to be changed: resolution. The game starts with a 1920x1080 resolution and increases the screen size to cover the entire Deck screen. While I generally like this, it unfortunately cuts off some of the UI assets used in-game, so we need to go into the settings and change to 1280x720.
You can play with the cut-off UI, but to be able to see everything, you will want to change the resolution.
With this being a simpler game, there aren't many settings to change. There are two sliders for audio and a toggle for sound effects dialogues, and language, but that's about it.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions outright, so you will either need to play with a slightly cut-off UI without black bars or play with nothing cut-off but there are black bars. Luckily, the game does have full controller and cloud save support.
If you enjoy deep stories with interesting characters and an intriguing setting, this is the game for you. I love how narrative and I easily got invested in the world that was built. The simple RPG mechanics and combat wasn't as appealing, but the other aspects of the game easily made up for it, and I was motivated to keep playing to see what happens next. It runs great on the Steam Deck as well. I would recommend changing the resolution so nothing is cut off, but you will have a good time with this one regardless!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Long Gone Days is an incredible narrative-driven game that shines when you focus on the story. It also runs incredibly on the Steam Deck.
