The Ascent

I have always been a big fan of Cyberpunk settings. I love the futuristic, technology heavy setting that encompasses a gritty future we could one day have. Now put that setting into a co-op friendly Action RPG that runs well on the Steam Deck and I am a happy camper, and let me tell you, I am pretty damn happy. With the ability to customize your character with cyberware, skillpoints, and even clothing, this explosive shooter is way too much fun to play.

There are some good and bad points when playing on the Deck, but I would say overall, it was more positive than negative. The good is the game has Cloud Save support (thank god) AND Accessibility options that include text resizing! This is especially important on the Steam Deck due to its smaller screen.

The Ascent itself also runs well in the first 2 hours I played, though there were a couple spots I noticed major dips. Luckily, this only happened once or twice and in all combat scenarios, it held a solid 40 FPS (some explosions caused minor dips that recovered immediately). The game is made with UE4, which does mean you will see dips when loading into new places, though this recovered immediately as well. I did also notice some minor ghosting, though because the camera is so far away most of the time, I didn't feel it impacted gameplay much. I will also make note that I did not crash once when playing the game. I am aware of others who report it, so if your game is crashing, please leave a comment so we can investigate!

The Ascent is also the first game that I felt Half-Rate Shading made a big difference in framerate stability, but didn't change visuals as much. Overall, from this first look, I would say The Ascent will be good to play on Deck!

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Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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