Nioh 3 was provided by Koei Tecmo for review. Thank you!
I have a complicated feeling when it comes to Action RPGs/soulslikes. I enjoy them a lot, but I tend not be so good at them, and I take quite a while to complete. Still, I have a lot of fun, and of all the soulslikes out there, Nioh is one of my favorites. The fast pace of the combat and tons of loot we can find in a gorgeous Japan-inspired world have always been ones I enjoyed. So, with Nioh 3, I was so excited to get back into the series. However, what I found was probably one of the best soulslikes I have ever played, and the golden standard I will be comparing future ones to.
Nioh 3's story starts off relatively interesting, and there is some uniqueness throughout that kept me curious, but it isn't what I would consider a strong point. We play as Takechiyo, one of the grandsons of Ieyasu Tokugawa, who is set to inherit his grandfather's shogun position. He has a rivalry with his brother, Kunimatsu, who also wants the position, and ultimately, we are sent back in time to defeat invading Yokai. I liked that we were going back through different periods of history to change destiny, but it never took me in as much as I hoped.
However, the rest of the game completely makes up for it. I don't usually play the Nioh games for their stories, though I will give Nioh 3 the benefit of the doubt and say it was the most interesting to learn about.
Combat is outstanding and refined to a tee, to the point where every single fight, no matter how big or small, was exciting. The constant action of having to continually attack, dodge, and block incoming attacks all feels perfectly in sync with each other, with almost no room for any spots where it could feel stale. Nioh's gameplay has always been a high point for me, and I love soulslikes that go all in with fast-paced action (like Sekiro), but Nioh 3 feels like a step above the rest.
The general combat mechanics haven't changed much from previous iterations of the game, and it's going to feel very familiar at first. The Samurai form is what we have come to know and love with Nioh, where keeping our stamina up to continually attack with slower-ish swings that have a good chunk of power. We still have the Ki Pulse to regain our stamina, Omoyo magic, and guardian spirits to help us in our fights, and they feel as good as ever.
But that doesn't mean we have nothing new here. The Ninja Form feels like the exact opposite of the Samurai Form. Instead of the more traditional soulslike gameplay based on slower, powerful strikes and blocking, the Ninja Form is all about faster, weaker attacks and using a multitude of tools at your disposal. The specific weapons the Ninja has, mixed with all of the tools, ultimately add a completely new way to tackle foes.
Team Ninja did an amazing job at making each form feel so different from the other, but still work together perfectly. We have the slow and steady usual style of gameplay in the Samurai form, and the fast-paced Ninja form, where we move around constantly to get ourselves in a good position to deal as much damage as we can without being struck.
Switching between the two feels like second nature, making utilizing both forms during one fight very common. To complement and encourage this, some foes will have these glowing red attacks that can be parried by swapping forms at the right time. These Burst Counters can help a lot by bringing down the enemy stamina bar to grapple and deal some larger damage more quickly. And ultimately, these additions, along with the refined combat, elevate Nioh 3's combat above any other soulslike I have played yet.
As a soulslike, getting stronger is going to be fairly similar to the usual. We fight enemies, get currency, and use that currency to level up and increase our stats. However, the reason the Nioh series has captivated me as much as it has is due to its loot and equipment system. There's a ton of weapons and equipment that drops from enemies, all of which have randomized stats, substats, and even set bonuses. I am a sucker for this kind of gameplay; constantly grinding for new equipment and stronger weapons is a good time for me.
Nioh 3 takes a bit of a different approach when it comes to its world as well. Instead of the linear levels from previous entries, we get an open world to explore. It's not as big and expansive as, say, Elden Ring, but it's very sizable and filled with a lot of activities. We have mini bosses, finding collectibles like Kodama, Crucibles, enemy bases, and each map has a bunch of mini areas with an exploration level that can go up to give us extra stat buffs.
No matter the time period, each map has similar activities to do, but I had such a good time with each of them that it never felt like it overstayed its welcome. With how great combat is, I loved finding excuses to keep going around and fighting enemies, finding more equipment, and slowly completing all the activities to level up my exploration.
While the demo essentially confirmed this, Nioh 3 will not be a good experience on the Steam Deck. Even at the lowest possible settings with heavy upscaling, the game will regularly fall under 30 FPS, feeling unstable and stuttery just trying to get through it. For a soulslike, this is a death sentence. Trying to fight bosses without a stable framerate can lead to incorrect timing for dodges, blocks, and, in Nioh's case, style switches. It harms the experience too much, and because of it, I would avoid playing on the Deck natively.
This is most likely due to the very obvious high CPU usage. It makes it very hard to optimize for the Deck further, and it kills performance.
On top of that, there are some videos that just won't play, so even just trying to power through the game is going to hurt the overall experience and make it nearly impossible to enjoy.
There is a dedicated accessibility settings tab for the game. In it, we can configure controls, change whether the Style Shift and Burst Break are separated, and how they activate, toggle Grapple and Martial Arts, change guard control and stick settings, swap horizontal controls, change vibration intensity, and toggle whether dismemberment and blood are showing. You can also change language and voice, modify subtitles, and change some audio settings.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, but it does have cloud saves and controller support. The game does have HDR settings, and it recognizes the Steam Deck OLED screen.
Nioh 3 is my favorite game so far this year, hands down. The combat is exquisite with new mechanics that complement the refinements from the previous two games, while the open-world levels fit right in with the series. The story may not be the most memorable, but the action makes up for it completely. This is now my all-time favorite soulslike, and if you have a computer powerful enough to run it, I can happily recommend it with ease.
However, you will need a decently powerful PC. Playing on the Steam Deck is a no-go, and unless it's streaming, I wouldn't get any hopes up about playing this on the Deck.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Access to Arknights: Endfield was provided by GRYPHLINE for review. Thank you!
Arknights: Endfield doesn’t just step out of the shadow of its predecessor; it actively burns the bridge behind it. This is not tower defence with a new coat of paint, nor is it interested in gently onboarding you from the original Arknights. Instead, developer Hypergryph swings for something far bolder: a moody, deliberate action-RPG that trusts its audience to keep up, even when it’s being dense, bleak, or unapologetically slow.
From the moment you set foot on Talos-II, the game makes its intentions clear. This is a world that doesn’t care if you’re comfortable. Vast industrial complexes loom over scorched landscapes, technology feels barely under control, and every location carries the weight of something having gone catastrophically wrong. Endfield thrives on atmosphere, and it’s at its best when it lets environments do the talking rather than spelling everything out through exposition. Even standing still can feel oppressive, in the best possible way.
That tone carries directly into the story, which is equal parts fascinating and frustrating. You play as the Endministrator, a figure of authority navigating political tension, environmental collapse, and the consequences of industrial ambition. The writing is smart, but indulgent. Early on, the game absolutely loves the sound of its own terminology, and it’s easy to bounce off the sheer volume of names, concepts, and factions thrown at you. Stick with it, though, and the narrative slowly reveals a confidence and maturity that’s rare in the genre. When Endfield slows down and focuses on people rather than systems, it lands its emotional beats with surprising force.
Combat is where all that brooding energy finally gets to cut loose. Endfield’s real-time, party-based action is slick, weighty, and far more thoughtful than it first appears. This isn’t a button-masher pretending to be clever — success comes from reading enemy patterns, knowing when to swap characters, and committing to your decisions. Each character feels distinct, not just cosmetically but mechanically, and building a rhythm between them mid-fight is deeply satisfying. Yes, some encounters blur together over time, but the moment-to-moment feel of combat is strong enough to carry the experience.
Exploration strikes a smart balance between freedom and focus. Rather than dropping you into an overwhelming open world, Endfield offers tightly connected spaces that encourage poking around without killing momentum. Movement feels good, traversal options keep things snappy, and there’s a pleasing sense of forward motion that stops the game from bogging down between combat and story. It respects your time more than its early pacing might suggest.
Visually, the game is a knockout. Character models are sharp and expressive, cutscenes are framed with confidence, and the use of scale gives Talos-II a genuinely cinematic presence. The soundtrack quietly does a lot of heavy lifting too, underscoring the game’s melancholy without ever screaming for attention. That said, the interface can get noisy during intense moments, occasionally fighting the player for clarity when things kick off.
Being free-to-play inevitably brings baggage, and Endfield doesn’t pretend otherwise. Progression systems sit in the background like a low hum, never quite going away. While the game is generous enough early on and avoids constantly shoving spending prompts in your face, players with little tolerance for gacha conventions will still feel the friction over time. It’s not the defining feature of the experience, but it is a persistent one.
To play Arknights: Endfield on the Steam Deck, you will have to install it from a third-party. This could be from Epic using the Heroic Games Launcher or NonSteamLaunchers, or installing the launcher directly and adding it to Steam.
Arknights: Endfield performs better than might be expected for a visually dense, PC-first release. With sensible settings in place, specifically keeping it at the "Very Low" preset, albeit with an FPS cap of 60, the game is certainly capable of mostly holding that 60fps target, delivering a surprisingly smooth experience during exploration and combat alike. While there can be the occasional dip during busier moments, overall performance feels stable enough to comfortably justify a higher frame-rate cap rather than settling for 30fps, which helps the game feel more responsive on Valve’s handheld.
That performance does come at a cost, however. Power draw typically sits in the 22–24W range, putting sustained pressure on the Steam Deck’s battery. In real-world use, that translates to an expected battery life of around two hours at best, and sometimes less depending on brightness and background processes. It’s very much a “play near a charger” experience, but for shorter sessions, Endfield proves that the Steam Deck can deliver strong performance, even if endurance takes a predictable hit.
No accessibility options are available.
In the end, Arknights: Endfield feels like a game made with quiet confidence. It’s dense, occasionally stubborn, and absolutely uninterested in chasing mass appeal. That won’t work for everyone, and it doesn’t try to. But for players willing to meet it on its own terms, Endfield offers a richly atmospheric, mechanically engaging experience that feels rare in the free-to-play space. It’s flawed, sometimes frustrating, and often brilliant, a game that knows exactly what it wants to be, even if it makes you work a little to appreciate it. As with every GaaS, however, especially the Gacha-based ones, its survival is contingent on future content and on whether the systems implemented, both present and future, feel fair to the burgeoning playerbase.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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The Outer Worlds 2 was provided by Xbox Game Studios for review. Thank you!
Having not played the original The Outer Worlds game, I wasn't sure what to expect from The Outer Worlds 2, but I would say I was pleasantly surprised. What I ended up finding was a story-based, structured RPG where almost everything has its purpose, except for maybe the copious amounts of loot!
As far as the storyline of The Outer Worlds 2, there's a mix of personal revenge and an overarching plot affecting far more than yourself, although both are intermingled. It's an intriguing, if slightly odd, plot. Some of it felt somewhat contrived, but it does build up nicely, and there are some good set pieces.
The game also does a decent job of giving players some freedom to decide how the storyline progresses, mostly by letting them choose which characters and factions to side with. Although the immediate results aren't too different, the final ending of the game and its various factions will be affected by the choices you make throughout the game, even choices that don't seem particularly critical.
There are 3 main factions in the game, but only 2 are available to side with (or neither), and all 3 are very cult-like in their operations. A sense of loyalty to the factions is a pretty major theme throughout the storyline, and the majority of people you meet will belong to one of the three factions.
When it comes to the actual gameplay, The Outer Worlds 2 does feel pretty decent. The movement feels fine, although vaulting over objects is a little fiddly and seems restrictive at times; you do feel a little stuck to the ground in the game, and I would have liked to feel a bit freer in my movement. The guns feel good to use, though, and even though the enemies do lean on the side of being a bit bullet-spongey, you do still feel somewhat powerful if you have a decent weapon by your side, especially as you lean into automatic weapons later on.
As for the amount of content in the game, there is plenty to sink your teeth into. You have your main quests, which advance the plot, as well as plenty of side quests and companion quests to carry out, which often have an impact on the main quests, such as making them easier to do, so it's to your advantage to explore the world a little and interact with the NPCs.
It's one of the nicer ways I've seen side quests handled in an RPG, to be honest. You don't feel like you're finishing quests just to get experience points. Finishing these quests usually makes something easier later down the line, or will affect the story in a small way at least.
One of my main criticisms of The Outer Worlds 2 is the enemy AI; it's really disappointing in places. Simple things, such as shutting doors or going into another room, seemed to really confuse pursuing AI. They also seemed unable to see through entirely transparent windows; they are treated the same as solid walls for AI detection. which really pulls you out of the game, especially since the game often offers stealth as an option. The systems in place aren't really up to scratch for the game to work as a "Stealth" game.
Beyond the stealth mechanics, the AI sometimes seemed not to know what to do, and some ignored my presence entirely during a fight.
As for the loot in the game, it suffers from the same bloat that Bethesda games suffer from. Some areas just have an abundance of loot that's there for the taking, mostly food products that heal you for about 4-6% of your health. While it's not strictly necessary to loot them, you are going to lose out if you don't. The saving grace here is that at least lootable items are clearly outlined.
Visually, the game does hold up quite well; it's not spectacular; we've seen games look far better than this, but there's almost a stylized quality to the game that helps it along. It does suffer visually at lower settings, though, which is especially noticeable on the Steam Deck.
I also noticed a couple of bugs when playing, such as a character referencing a conversation I was about to have, but hadn't had yet, which was pretty strange. And I presume some of the AI behavior I experienced could also be called a "bug".
The Outer Worlds 2 makes a good first impression on the Steam Deck, defaulting to the native 1280x800 resolution and offering full controller support in all menus and gameplay. The game also runs you through the accessibility options on the first launch, so you can adjust your UI scaling/font sizes to your preference.
When it comes to the graphical settings, The Outer Worlds 2 already has a Steam Deck preset in place. Defaulting the game to the lowest settings, except keeping Shadows on Medium, I would recommend switching this to Low as well.
FSR is left on the "Quality" setting, so while there is some upscaling, it's minor, and we do still get a pretty clear image.
As for performance, the preset is clearly designed to target 30 FPS, so I would recommend using the in-game settings to lock the frame rate to 30 FPS. The SteamOS frame limiter introduces input lag in this game, so don't use it.
You will, however, still get drops below 30 FPS, even as low as 25 FPS in areas like towns where there are NPCs wandering about. In this case, the Steam Deck's CPU is struggling, so no amount of setting adjustments will help. I'd still call the game playable, but it can be a little unpleasant in these busy areas.
As far as power draw goes, expect it to be around 16W-22W, but mostly leaning on the upper side, meaning you'll be getting around 2.5 hours of battery life on a Steam Deck OLED and around 1.5 hours on a Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures were in the 70 °C - 75 °C range.
The Outer Worlds 2 has some good accessibility options. Of most note to Steam Deck users is the various UI scaling options. You can independently scale UI elements like the HUD and subtitles, and add an opaque background to subtitles to make them easier to read, ensuring text is legible on the device.
There are also other accessibility options, such as disabling camera swaying, enabling motion sickness mitigation, and adjusting aim assist. Plus, there is a "story" difficulty mode to make combat easier.
The Outer Worlds 2 is a solid game, if a little rough around the edges in places. I would classify this as a "Bethesda-lite" game. It has less content and a smaller world than, say, the Fallout games, but if you're after a more structured, story-based game, then The Outer Worlds 2 does a good job of being a first-person shooter RPG.
As for Steam Deck performance, it's a bit disappointing; holding 30 FPS just isn't realistic. On the plus side, most areas where you drop below 30 FPS are not combat ones, so I would still call the game playable.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time was provided by LEVEL5 for review. Thank you!
The Life/Farming Sim genre has been pretty active over the past 10 years, likely as a result of Stardew Valley revitalizing the genre, especially for indie developers. But LEVEL5 has brought something a little different to the table with FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and it's a welcome change from the usual state of affairs.
Don't get me wrong, I love life sims like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Rune Factory. But FANTASY LIFE i takes a different approach to these games. In a reversal of the status quo, FANTASY LIFE i puts the story at the center of the game, with life-sim elements revolving around it. In fact, if you want to, you can pretty much just focus on the storyline, completing quests, and progressing through the world at quite a pace, but that's not really how the game is designed to be played.
You can easily branch off from the main quest line and take on a wide range of side quests, or just explore the world and level up your various "Lives", which are the professions you can choose from in the game, ranging from a chef to a miner, and various combat roles too. You can change these on the fly once you have obtained the license for each one, which opens up the ability to perform various tasks. Each Life is leveled up separately and has its own skill tree, so progressing along the skill trees and leveling up each Life is really where a lot of your time will be spent.
If that isn't your cup of tea, then the main questline doesn't really require you to do any grinding. In fact, the game is surprisingly short. If you don't go for any side content, like optional quests or decorating your own island (more on that later), you could complete the main storyline in less than 10 hours. There are a couple of "hiccups" where you'll need to find additional friends to live on your island with you, and you'll need at least basic skills in each of the "Lives", but other than that, you can pretty much do quest after quest to progress the story.
While combat isn't really a focus of the game, there is a decent amount of it, and the mechanics in place work well enough, even if they are a bit basic. You have the ability to dodge, light attack, heavy attack, and, if you have a shield, block attacks too. Difficulty is on the easier side, although some bosses do put up a fair fight. Again, grinding usually isn't a requirement unless you're going for 100% completion, just make sure you have the right equipment and some buddies to fight alongside.
As for the story itself, as you might imagine, given the game's full title, it revolves heavily around time-traveling and time manipulation. There's not so much in the way of twists in this story; the antagonists and protagonists are revealed almost as soon as they appear, and while there are some interesting premises, there's nothing that really sets the game apart in terms of its storyline.
Shortly into the story, you'll be introduced to an island, which eventually becomes your "Home Base". A place where you can build houses, decorate your village, and gain villagers by saving them from the dark energy used by the antagonists.
This village represents a fairly significant portion of the "side content" in the game, and you'll be able to do things like accept requests from your villagers for certain items in exchange for rewards, complete guild activities to unlock more decorations, and expand your island further. It's reasonably fleshed out, and the customization, I would say, is similar to that of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, although the personalities of each villager are much less detailed and interesting.
Really, it's all about what you're buying FANTASY LIFE i for. It does have a storyline, and that's a nice rarity in the game like this, but it's not an especially deep one, and if you focus on it, you'll be done in no time. It has a fair amount of side content, but much of it revolves around grinding experience points and doing various tasks like mining, cooking, and fishing.
It lacks the close personal relationships you can build in something like Stardew Valley, as well as the fun daily systems in place in games like Animal Crossing. But you can still have plenty of fun with leveling up your jobs to get new gear and leveling up your island to get more villagers and new decorations, which is what you will spend most of your time doing, so if that does sound appealing, then FANTASY LIFE i is worth your attention.
FANTASY LIFE i is a great game to play on the Steam Deck; it has good controller support for both menus and gameplay, the game actively mentions supporting Remote Play Together for the simple co-op mode, and it has the graphics automatically configured for the Steam Deck.
The graphics preset generally falls around "Medium" settings, and targets 60 FPS, which it reaches almost 100% of the time, with the odd dip into the high 50s here and there, but not enough for me to suggest changing the settings, so leave them as-is.
Power draw does vary according to your location, but it is generally around 14-18W, so it's not too intensive on the battery. You should expect around 3.5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED and around 2-2.5 hours on a Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures were in the 65 °C - 70 °C range.
FANTASY LIFE i has limited accessibility options. All dialogue is subtitled, even voiced lines. You can enable auto-targeting of enemies when you draw a weapon, and controls are rebindable.
FANTASY LIFE i definitely has its good points. It has a decent storyline, albeit a short one, and it has plenty of side content in the form of levelling up your "lives" and enhancing your island, but it definitely caters towards players who enjoy that grind. If that doesn't describe you, then this game might not be for you.
As for Steam Deck support, you can't really fault FANTASY LIFE i. Great controller support and a graphics preset already in place for the device mean that you can't really ask for more in terms of how well it runs on the Steam Deck.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Demonschool was provided by Ysbryd Games for review. Thankyou!
Demonschool is a game that completely slipped under my radar. I played the demo during Steam Next Fest a while back and enjoyed myself, but with so many games out, I lost track of it. This incredibly stylish tactical RPG was originally going to launch on September 3, which would have been incredibly unfortunate given that Hollow Knight Silksong came out September 4! Fortunately, the game has been pushed back to November 19, giving myself even more time to play and enjoy it. In general, Demonschool oozes character and has fantastic gameplay to complement it. To add that icing on the cake, it is also nearly perfect on the Steam Deck.
Developed by Necrosoft Games, Demonschool takes on a tasty blend of visual novel and turn-based RPG gameplay, and the premise is fascinating. The game takes place on a university campus teeming with strange things, occult horrors, and a group of bizarre gangsters determined to ruin everyone’s day. Make note of the occult horror part, because an apocalypse is coming, and it is your job to stop it!
Players take on the central role of Faye, a demon-obsessed new student who instantly makes her presence felt on everyone around her. I must commend the developers at Necrosoft Games for the way they have developed the cast. Faye might be one of my favorite characters I’ve played as this year. She is hilarious, without the horrible Marvelization that has plagued the media, always willing to get into a fight, and proactive throughout the story. All this combines nicely, and it has been a refreshing experience.
From the beginning, when on the ship to the university, Faye had me cackling at her attempts to socialize with people who thought she was an oddball, and starting a fight within seconds of arriving. That sounds like a usual first day on campus. She gathers a group of fellow misfits who might find her weird, but her sheer enthusiasm and the growing threat bring them together. The other characters are great too. Destin is as obsessed with fighting as Faye, while Namako and Krute are quieter individuals. As the story progresses, you get to know them all, and the writing is solid all around.
Between missions, you get to explore the hub map that has plenty of locations to rummage around, and while I wish the world had more things to do, it is a great way to showcase Demonschool’s visual design. Everything feels like a stylized Saturday morning cartoon, with the vibrant parts of the campus and people going about their daily lives. The map layout and day/night cycle remind me of the Persona series, although Demonschool handles time management much better.
While the world is static, there are still some fun secrets to find. The entire island has a deeply sinister vibe going on with students going missing, local gangs and police working together, and the constant threat of prison hanging over people’s heads. It is a fantastic atmosphere, made even better by the great music. I did find the exploration lacking in some areas, as the spaces are pretty small, but it doesn’t detract from my overall experience. There are even some nice minigames to get involved with.
The big draw to Demonschool is the combat. The core of the combat system is simple. Do not let your team die, and do not let demons break the barrier guarding the passage into the real world. You’ll usually have to kill a certain number of enemies to seal the boundary that the demons are using to invade. You get a team of four pretty quickly in the game, and their abilities complement each other well. Faye and Dustin are the heavy hitters of the gang, while Namako and Krute offer support with debuffing enemies, healing your team, and powering their attacks. Even though the latter two can’t damage enemies directly, you can combine attacks with other teammates for additional damage.
The turn-based combat reminds me of Tactical Breach Wizards with the free turn rewinds, and you can research a bunch of additional tools that add buffs for the characters. The combat is simple, but the extra toolbox provides enough depth to keep things interesting. The enemies have some nice variety, and the boss battles are also creative.
Although the combat is enjoyable, I did encounter some bugs. This was something I was aware of from my prerelease guide, but it was still a little annoying nonetheless. A couple of times, the game forced me to reload a save without any indication of why. Once the game froze after I finished a battle, I had to perform a hard reboot on my Steam Deck. During long conversations and combat sequences you cannot save, so it got frustrating when I had to reload a save and go through the whole dialogue chain again. The developers are working on a patch for this issue before launch, so hopefully, you will not encounter this problem.
There's a lot to like about Demonschool. The production quality and atmosphere are exceptional, and the turn-based combat offers enough to set the game apart from its competitors. Combine that with excellent writing and fun characters, and we have an awesome little game on our hands!
Demonschool has already been rated Steam Deck Verified by Valve before its launch, and I would consider the badge worthwhile here. While Valve’s track record with verification can be patchy, Steam Deck fans will be happy to know that Demonschool is pretty much perfect on the device.
There aren’t many options for us to tweak apart from some shaders and the screen resolution, but with fully controller support available out of the box and Demonschool’s lightweight footprint, I had no problem playing the game on the Steam Deck. The game looks great with its vibrant backgrounds, and the controls feel snappy and responsive. Some of the text size may be a little small in some instances, but none of this felt like an issue for me. Besides the pre-launch bugs I encountered, the experience on the Steam Deck has been positive.
The game is very light on the Steam Deck as well, and even with a full TDP and 60 FPS, you aren’t going to wreck the battery with this game. I saw a power draw of just 11 watts in the worst-case scenario, translating to nearly 5 hours of battery life on the Steam Deck OLED. The game also scales very well on low TDP, and I found that you can almost double the battery life by locking the game to 30 FPS and setting the TDP to 4 watts. For the smoothest experience, however, I recommend just keeping things on stock settings.
Demonschool is currently available in English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, French, and Spanish (Latin America).
The game offers numerous accessibility options. Players can toggle screenshake, change text speed and autoplay, adjust keyboard and gamepad axis, toggle the camera between dynamic and stationary, toggle portrait shake during combat, and there is an almost invincible gameplay toggle if you're having trouble in combat sections. Overall, this is a fairly comprehensive suite of tools, although I was unable to find a way to change the keybindings.
Demonschool has been a delight to play, and while it launched later than I would have liked, the game has been worth the wait. I wish there were more exploration in the world outside of missions, and the pre-launch bugs I encountered with the review build were a bit frustrating at times. However, the vibrant visual design, combined with solid gameplay, makes Demonschool a stylish turn-based RPG that ticks nearly all my boxes.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Sacred 2 Remaster was provided by THQ Nordic for review. Thank you!
The Sacred series takes me back. These were an oddball trilogy of fantasy RPG titles very similar to the Diablo franchise, and the first two titles were a lot of fun to play back in the day. We do not talk about Sacred 3’s release in 2014. That is a game, I think, we are better off scrubbing from our memory. The first two games are enjoyable enough romps that favored style over substance, packing big open worlds to explore, some humorous dialogue, and simple combat systems. While they never struck any emotional chords with me, they were enjoyable enough games in a junk food way.
Sacred 2 Remaster is the first revival of the series, so to speak, with THQ Nordic and Sparklingbit behind this one. While the remaster is undoubtedly welcome, it made me wonder why they started with the second game in the series. Why not the first? While a bizarre choice, it was interesting to see how things shape up with this refresh. Ultimately, while I found Sacred 2 Remaster a mixed bag, it's still a welcome return for the series to the 2020s. However, since I haven’t played the Sacred series in so long, please consider this review as a fresh look at the game rather than a comparison.
Sacred 2 offers numerous ways to customize your character, and the remaster is designed to bring it into the modern age. Full controller support, a plethora of accessibility and graphical options, and all the original content are the focus of the remaster, along with a slight visual uplift.
It isn’t a massive remaster when all things are said and done, not on the level of games like Age of Mythology: Retold, anyway. The visuals are nice, although I wouldn’t expect a significant upgrade. It’s more of an evolution into the 2010s era, but the environments are nicely detailed, and I love some of the sound design. Listening to the clanking of armored soldiers as they moved and the bustle of a village market helped me become immersed.
It has been many years since I played a Sacred game, so it took a while to get into things. I chose a metallic Anubis avatar as my character because I liked his sarcastic voice, favoring close combat and blasts from his energy gun. Things took some time to get used to because the mouse was particularly sensitive when using that function for navigation. I started my playthrough at the computer while waiting for it to install on the Deck.
You have to be very specific about what you click on, and I had a habit of accidentally clicking on something just outside an enemy’s hitbox. That got annoying very quickly when my Anubis dude ran towards a pack of bandits or wolves like a kid to a van marked ‘Free Sweets’. Enemies hit pretty hard even without this critical failure of my character to attack enemies back, so I died four times in the first twenty minutes of gameplay.
It is a better experience with the new controller support, which is good news for us handheld fans, and I was soon able to get into the swing of things. At its heart, Sacred 2 Remaster plays like a loot and upgrade action RPG. Locations offer quests and NPCS to interact with, with a ton of skills and items to kit out characters. I wouldn’t call much of the story or writing particularly compelling by any stretch, but there’s a certain charm to it, and some parts made me laugh. One of the funniest moments was when I paused the game, only to have my own Sacred embodiment insulting me for not giving it commands.
Sacred 2 is a treasure trove of slapstick moments, with voice acting that leans heavily into the comedic side. It's a rare treat to find an RPG that places as much emphasis on humor as the Sacred series does, and Sacred 2 doesn't disappoint. The game doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it's this charm that keeps you coming back for more.
The remaster includes some nice quality-of-life features, but my favorite addition is the auto-loot option. Being able to press a button and collect all items around you without fiddling with irritating mouse clicks is a godsend. The interface also looks great, with all the necessary information easily accessible and visually appealing.
That does lead me to my current feelings on the game, and that is, who is this game for? It’s a strange time to release a remaster of a Sacred match, and the second one in the trilogy at that. Then again, with games frequently receiving remasters and remakes, I am not terribly surprised we got one either. I have had plenty of fun despite having some gripes. The fixed camera became irritating, especially when entering buildings, and NPCs have a habit of walking into walls or standing still, so the AI could probably use a little polish.
Baffling choices aside, this is still Sacred 2 at its core, with a fresh coat of paint. While I encountered a few bugs here and there, this remaster is a solid way to experience Sacred 2 in the modern era.
Sacred 2 gets the basics right on the Steam Deck. It supports controllers well, and it also supports the Steam Deck's native 1280x800 resolution, allowing us to avoid any black borders.
When it comes to performance, it's unfortunately a bit mixed. The GPU handles the game well, so we can run with high graphical settings, which the game defaults to (basically all percentages set to 100%), and it looks nice. However, the Sacred 2 Remaster is pretty heavily dependent on single-thread CPU performance, which isn't the Steam Deck's strong suit.
As a result, the game's frame rate can fluctuate significantly between 30 and 60 FPS, particularly when the player character is in motion. I would recommend locking the frame rate to 40 FPS, as that keeps the frame rate locked 90% of the time. However, if drops like these bother you, you'll need to lock it to 30 FPS, I'm afraid.
Power draw is around 13-16W, but can spike on occasion. Expect a battery life of approximately 3.5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED and around 2.5 hours on a Steam Deck LCD.
Sacred 2 Remaster is available in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish.
Overall, a wide selection of accessibility functions is available. Players can adjust the zoom level and angle, toggle shadows, and freely adjust gamma levels, vignette, and chromatic aberration. Additionally, blur can be toggled. On the gameplay side, all quality-of-life features, including auto-loot, auto-equip, gore, auto-cast, and damage details, can be toggled on or off at will.
Although the game offers numerous options, it lacks some essential features, including Vsync, colorblind support, and UI scaling. You also cannot turn on subtitles for miscellaneous NPC dialogue, although this is a minor nitpick if anything else.
While there are a few missteps in this version, Sacred 2 Remaster is a solid re-imagining of the old classic RPG. The extra gameplay additions and interface overhauls are welcome, and the game still carries the same charm it had from the originals. Provided the folks at Sparklingbit and THQ Nordic work on smoothing out some of the rough edges from this remaster, there should be enough success to consider a return to the one that started it all.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Absolum was provided by Dotemu for review. Thank you!
Absolum brought me back to childhood, when I played Streets of Rage on the Sega Megadrive when I should have been asleep. Sure, this is a fantasy setting, but the vibes were there from the second I started the game. Developed by Guard Crush Games, Absolum blends the classic beat-em-up gameplay from the olden days with the roguelike indie structure that’s so common in the new age, and the result was something more refreshing than I expected.
Despite my childhood, I never really got into the beat-em-up genre. I moved towards strategy games such as Age of Empires, Empire Earth, and the Total War series. Despite this, Absolum caught my interest as soon as it was announced. The fast-paced gameplay and a fascinating world drew my attention, and Absolum came out of the gates swinging. There is a lot to like with this title, and it is also an excellent experience on the Steam Deck.
I did run into some weird freezes before the launch, which is why my review is delayed (apologies!). A pre-launch patch fixed the problem. Phew!
Absolum’s visual and narrative presentation hits you from the moment the game begins, and while the story beats don’t do anything unique, the characters and setting more than make up for that. The world of Talmah was shattered by wizards, triggering a magical collapse that enabled the tyrant king Azra to seize power and enslave magical people through his powerful Crimson Order. Pushed to the edge of extinction, the priestess Uchawi recruits a small force of rebels to fight against the regime, hoping to bring magic back to the world. The voice acting is excellent, and I appreciate all the characters' authenticity. Azra might feel like a typical fantasy dark lord, but I liked his portrayal.
Onto the visuals themselves, the battlefields and locations look fantastic. During your journey across Tamlah in the fight against Azra, the graphics show a vibrant range of biomes. Dense forests break out into fights over babbling brooks, and I intervene in battles between goblins and the Crimson Order in ruined settlements. Possessed and broken dwarves haunt the remnants of their undergrown kingdoms, and so on. I even enjoyed the background detail, which shows how much attention has been put into worldbuilding.
Absolum is one of those rare games where you can play solo or co-op without suffering any downsides. This is incredibly hard to do, especially in narrative games, because of how people tend to play multiplayer. It’s just a fact of life.
Moving on to gameplay, this is where Absolum truly shines. I wish more games had mixed beat-em-up with fantasy elements, and Guard Crush Games has done an incredible job with it. The starting two characters have various abilities and weapons that unlock over time with subsequent runs, and combat feels great. I got tons of pleasure from beating the tar out of goblins and the Crimson Order cronies with my burly dwarf. You get to unlock more warriors by encountering them as you progress, and they all bring their own twists.
Battlefields are relatively small and linear, but they often have things that stand out. There are a bunch of destructible objects that can be broken down. Some can be weapons against foolish tyrants, while others drop extra resources. Different locations can have other characters to interact with, while others have optional areas that are only accessible with specific keys that you might pick up in various runs.
Everything looks great, and the fast-paced combat flows well, too. Few things satisfied me more than when I threw a goblin into a band of Crimson Order thugs, and the progression abilities unlocked during stages added to the appeal. The challenge is high, especially when you’re overwhelmed by enemies and during boss battles. Still, the accessibility features are stellar, offering custom difficulty sliders to change how much damage you deal and take. This superb little option adds more player choice in how they want to play.
Stylish is the word I thought of most when playing Absolum. Everything feels well-crafted with love and attention, and that shows in the visuals and animations, as well as the gameplay loop. If you enjoy roguelike games and beating the tar out of your enemies, Absolum will be a great fit.
Absolum has the Steam Deck Playable badge from Valve, and ProtonDB gives it a Platinum rating. This is well justified, as the game works really well on handhelds.
The game’s startup loading screen strongly recommends using a controller, indicating that Guard Crush Games designed it with consoles in mind. My testing confirmed that when I was testing the preview build on PC, I encountered those early crashes. While the keyboard is an option, I found the default controller option far superior.
This is good news for us on the Steam Deck, and I cannot find much to fault Absolum's performance-wise. All the controls run great out of the box. The performance is also solid, with the game running at a smooth 60 FPS with default Steam Deck settings, native resolution, and graphics set to medium. This came as a little surprise to me, but it was still lovely to see the performance problems I had pre-launch resolved.
Absolum is relatively power-efficient on the Steam Deck as things go, and despite all the animations on-screen and gorgeous visuals, this was impressive. You will see an average power draw of 12-13 watts during general gameplay without tweaks, with spikes to 15 watts during heavy combat scenes. That should get you at least 3.5 hours of battery life on the Steam Deck OLED. The only slight sore spot for Absolum's experience on the Steam Deck is the lack of font scaling. Some of the text can be small, although I did not have any difficulty reading anything myself.
If you’re like me and fanatical about battery life (it’s like an illness for me, seriously), Absolum scales pretty well with the power efficiency of the Steam Deck. If you’re willing to compromise on frame rate and a little bit of visuals, you can almost double the battery life. I found a 4 Watt TDP limit, Graphics on low, and a 30FPS framerate cap provided the best balance with an average power draw of 7-8 watts. Absolum still looks great even with low graphics settings, especially on the OLED.
Absolum is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (Spain), Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Ukrainian.
Absolum comes with a nice array of accessibility features, including Vsync, colorblind modes, motion blur toggles, and an expanded difficulty modifier that lets the player adjust damage dealt to themselves or enemies in either direction. Overall, there’s a lot to like here.
Absolum is, overall, a fantastic package. I was surprised it took so long for someone to craft a beat-em-up roguelike, and Absolum has excellent production quality across the board. The combat is diverse and well-made with punchy visuals, and the worldbuilding is better than it has any right to be. Hades, of course, has set the bar for what rogue-like games can do with narrative, and Absolum does a great job of combining all the different gameplay elements.
The challenge is up there, and I’d say the difficulty is on the high end, but the damage modifiers give all that control to the player. A near-perfect experience on the Steam Deck is just a juicy bonus. My only real gripe with Absolum is the poor experience without a controller, which is minor compared to everything positive about the game. I strongly recommend it!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition was provided by Aspyr Media for review. Thank you!
Neverwinter Nights is an old D&D classic. It was always a name thrown around when I was young, being touted as the best RPG, with co-op support to boot. We've had Neverwinter Nights Enhanced, now it's time for its 2006 sequel to receive its Enhanced Edition. So, does Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition bring the game to 2025 standards?
"Enhanced" is the best way to describe this version of the game. We have some mildly improved graphics, although it still does feel like a fantasy RPG from the 00s. At first glance, someone not well-versed in RPGs could mistake this for World of Warcraft Classic. We also have controller support, along with some UI changes, including a reworked UI for those playing on controller instead of keyboard and mouse.
While the visuals are slightly enhanced, many of the core gameplay elements remain untouched. This might be expected, seeing as Neverwinter Nights 2 is based on the D&D 3.5 Ruleset, so any changes to how the game plays would have to be minimal.
That being said, the gameplay is enjoyable when it works. You have many classes, skills, feats, and spells to choose from; there's no end to the builds you could develop in subsequent playthroughs. The game even has that nice CRPG depth in places, where you will get different dialogue depending on your chosen race, for example.
The storyline of the main campaign isn't anything too crazy, largely focusing on the player character being a sort of "chosen one", with intrigue being built as you play as to who your adversaries are and what they want. It's helped by the fact that the game does have a lot of voice acting, especially for a game of its time. While some dialogue is text-based, much is voiced, especially any story-related dialogue.
There are plenty of things to do beyond the main storyline, though. Almost every location you meet will have at least a couple of quests associated with it, and if you are getting tired of blazing through the story, you can easily go to the World Map and head back to previous locations and tidy up all the side quests you've picked up. Plus, there are four campaigns included in the game, besides the main storyline.
There's also no need to gradually traverse back to do quests; you can fast travel anywhere as long as you are at a fast travel point. Perhaps not realistic, but definitely appreciated by me.
Combat can get a little frenetic, ironically enough. The game isn't turn-based, and instead uses a real-time hybrid system, a bit like the Knights of the Old Republic games. Unfortunately, I found Neverwinter Nights 2 more cumbersome than Knights of the Old Republic. Switching party members requires you to press RT and then scroll down a list to select which one, instead of a quick button press to tab to the next party member, which I feel would be faster and much more conducive to micro-management.
The amount of spells you have available can also be overwhelming, given the real-time nature of the game. You'll likely be pausing frequently during combat if you aren't familiar with the game. Going through the hotbar menus and trying to discern what each spell does (there are no detailed tooltips for your hotbar) can waste valuable time while enemies hammer your party.
The difficulty is a mixed bag, and it probably depends on the class you start with. I began with a Druid, which is usually a more difficult class due to their vulnerability, and I found the game pretty brutal. On the "Normal" difficulty setting, my party wiped several times. Enemies can easily overwhelm you, and if you're a class that isn't very "tanky", you might struggle at first until you get some better skills.
There is an "Easy" difficulty option, which weights the dice rolls in your favor, and if you are finding the game as frustrating as I was, you might want to switch to that. There are also harder difficulties if you are feeling particularly sadistic.
However, I noticed a couple of issues when playing. Collisions seem somewhat temperamental, walking close by certain walls or characters causes your player to sort of "glue" to them, meaning you have to back away to keep moving.
Your AI party members also seem to struggle with pathfinding. When entering a battle, your AI party members seem to aggro onto every enemy in the vicinity, even going so far as opening doors to adjacent rooms to fight new groups of enemies. This makes combat needlessly difficult, and I found myself fighting 15 enemies instead of 5 because my AI party was aggroing every enemy they could find.
Occasionally, they stood by while I was fighting and refused to engage the enemy until I manually took control and ordered them to fight. Unfortunately, these issues happen often enough that they have caused several party wipes for me and greatly impacted my enjoyment of the game.
Speaking of Party Wipes, they're pretty brutal in the game. If you do wipe, you have to restart from your last saved game, and the game only autosaves when you go between points on the world map, so you can lose an absolute ton of progress if you aren't regularly manually saving the game. It's pretty frustrating, to say the least.
Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition runs pretty well on the Steam Deck. The controller support is great, which was my main concern, and the game does support the Steam Deck's 1280x800 resolution.
Performance-wise, it's pretty decent, too. We can't quite manage 60 FPS on the highest settings, but we can manage 40 FPS, which is fine for this kind of game. We also get all the graphical niceties, which is how I would recommend you play the game.
If you want to run at a locked 60 FPS with less power draw, you can lower Shadow Options to Medium, which removes dynamic shadows (such as on characters) but uses much less power.
With these settings, the game stayed at a locked 40 FPS throughout most of the game, even during large battles with 15-20 participants and many particle effects. One exception is at certain times of day (sunrise and sunset) in areas with lots of grass. The High Shadow setting, which adds dynamic shadows, does cause some drops into the 30s, but it's a small portion of the game that is affected.
The power draw varies depending on your area and situation, but generally stays around 8-12W, with spikes up to 15 - 16W in busy exterior areas; interiors stay towards the lower end of the range. Temperatures were around 55 - 60 °C. You can expect battery life to last around 4.5 - 5 hours on the Steam Deck OLED and around 3.5 - 4 hours on the Steam Deck LCD model.
Accessibility in Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition takes the form of difficulty options and a "Level of Violence" setting, which adjusts the amount of blood shown in combat from none at all to exaggerated. All dialogue is subtitled.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition certainly improves on some aspects of the game's original version, bringing slightly improved visuals, controller support, and some reworked UI. However, some technical and quality-of-life issues with the game stand out like sore thumbs and really damaged the experience for me. Hopefully, these can be resolved with patches, but now, Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition might best be experienced by those nostalgic for the game.
As for Steam Deck performance, it's solid. The game runs and controls well, is perfectly playable from start to finish, and has decent battery life.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
System Shock 2 Remaster was provided by Nightdive Studios for review. Thank you!
Even by today's standards, I would still consider System Shock 2 to be one of the more interesting sci-fi RPGs I have played. The story behind it still intrigues me, and I love the amount of depth and intricacy that went into its gameplay systems. It's pretty amazing to still think of this 25-year-old title as one that could compete with the greats that are being released today, but age has caught up with it, and it isn't the greatest to play. Well, the game is officially getting the Nightdive treatment, and I am so happy to have another reason to play it.
For some background, System Shock 2 was originally released in 1999 and received critical acclaim with very positive reviews. Now, the cult classic action RPG has been given the Nightdive treatment, giving a reason to dive back into it after 25 years. This new remaster includes cross-play co-op multiplayer, additional mod support, better performance with higher framerate support, achievements, optimized controller support, enhanced visuals, and many quality-of-life improvements.
Nightdive Studios is quite dedicated to making sure the game looks and feels like the original, while updating it, and they did a great job here. As I was playing, I was in awe of how gorgeous and detailed everything looked without it feeling like a different game. The updates they added don't take away from the soul of the experience, and that's something I am always worried about with remasters. It is System Shock 2, just with better support and visuals, and a bunch of fixes.
It was a joy to run around the Von Braun starship again, trying to figure out exactly what happened. It turns out that the rogue artificial intelligence SHODAN has taken over the spaceship, and you have to figure out how to stop her. It's an intricate story that I still find endearing and fascinating to play through, even after all of this time.
But the real joy of System Shock 2 comes from its depth and complexity. The game starts out giving you three different career paths, which give bonuses to different stats, helping build out the way you want to play. Whether you want to focus on hacking and repairing, strength and melee/gun damage, or psionic abilities, you can. Each one feels very different from each other, which offers a nice reason to go back and replay the game and see how each approach changes. You are also able to boost your base stats with Cyber Modules to increase your abilities further, as well as gain new Psi powers.
While the game is a FPS-RPG hybrid, it definitely feels closer to an RPG. The detail in how you approach each encounter and situation varies wildly depending on the decisions you make, and how you build out your character and what core attributes you want to focus on. Someone who wants to use psionic abilities, like teleportation and freezing, will tackle enemies coming at you differently than someone who wants to focus on using a gun or melee weapon.
After trying all the options, I felt the Psi (OSA path) was the most enjoyable to use. I like the variety of the powers I could wield and the care I had to take when using them. Powers that cause direct damage could be overcharged, which damages myself, so it was fun to balance attacking and sneaking by enemies to complete the objectives I needed to. I appreciate that I could also change things up with OS upgrades and Cyber Modules upgrades, so I was able to give myself some strength to increase inventory capacity.
With this being an RPG focus, I wasn't as much of a fan of melee/gun combat. Using weapons directly just felt sluggish, and shooting guns felt rudimentary. I disliked having to use them, and it made me miss the more modern enhancements of this type of combat. Still, I would say this somewhat adds to the charm of this timeless classic, but I wouldn't choose to go this route.
There's also something to be said about the level design for System Shock 2. It definitely feels dated, but it is still engaging and rewarding to explore. Finding hidden items or a recharge station around the corners is exciting, and it makes me want to explore the creepy corridors of the spaceship. I enjoyed taking my time and scoping out the hallways and rooms, seeing who is where and planning on how best to effectively take them down.
I also enjoy the co-op multiplayer as an option, and having mod support out of the box is going to be essential for longevity. I can't wait to see the mods that people will create and the new missions to experience. It should be significantly better than playing the original, so I am excited. It may also be a little bit jarring for newcomers, especially those who were introduced to the series from the System Shock 1 remake. However, the longer you play, the more it will make sense and stick with you.
For the most part, I am happy with the controller support. Everything is accessible with the controller, and I never felt like I couldn't access what I needed to, but it is still a bit obnoxious to utilize. Nightdive's dedication to retaining the quality and feeling of the original works against it here. Accessing my inventory and using items in it felt cumbersome and confusing, and a lot of times it took me twice as long to do what I needed to do. I appreciate a screen with the controls staying up when I am in the inventory, but it just takes too long, and there are too many steps to just equip a gun or use different items.
Having to open the inventory with Select, move over to the item, pressing Y to bring up additional actions, and hit equip just feels like too many steps, and I found myself hitting A instead, which picks up the item to move around in your inventory. I did end up getting more used to it, but it definitely took me a minute.
Still, as I said before, it adds to the charm, and I am very happy this is all very playable on the Steam Deck.
As with almost all of Nightdive Studios games, System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster's performance on the Steam Deck is near flawless. The team has shown time and time again how talented they are when it comes to optimization and how malleable the KEX Engine can be. The game doesn't struggle at all to hit 90 FPS, and can stick to it with around 13W - 14W battery drain at the maximum. For those with a Steam Deck OLED, it's great, but bringing it down to 60 FPS can keep it around a 10W drain.
This held strong throughout the game without needing to change a thing, so I would say this is a Best on Deck game! I would still recommend going to a 60 FPS cap for the increased battery life without getting rid of the smoothness, but it's the dealer's choice. Regardless of how you choose to play, it's still going to be great.
We can change the view and weapon bobbing, difficulty, keybindings, language, camera speed and inversion, sensitivity, the aim scale, and volume bars.
The game does support 16:10 resolutions, as well as cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings.
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster is the definitive way to experience this timeless classic. It was an amazing feeling getting back into the world of System Shock without feeling like it lost any of the charm I had fallen for from the original. The depth of the gameplay systems is wonderful, and although some of the original's faults do peek through, it doesn't change just how great it is to play with all of the improvements Nightdive has added.
On top of that, it's a joy to play on the Steam Deck. It's definitely a Best on Deck game, and I can't help but enjoy playing it on the go. This is a great portable experience, and I can't wait for mods to come out!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Creature Keeper was provided by Graffiti Games for review. Thank you!
Creature Keeper is one of a growing number of creature collection games that live on Steam, and the comparisons to Pokémon are impossible to ignore in this genre. And how can it not? Pokémon is the biggest entertainment franchise in the world, after all. However, it differentiates itself from its rivals in a multitude of ways, like real-time combat and strong world and character building. While the experience was an enjoyable one, it was marred by some troublesome issues that should hopefully be fixed by release or soon after.
Creature Keeper does not look like much on the surface, but it has a ton of self-awareness and mockery of the fantasy formula that intrigued me. As a Keeper in the fantasy world of monsters and taming, your first day does not start well. The tutors are lazy assholes who make the recruits pick weeds and do not care whether you like that or not. The game's dialogue is generally well-written and doesn't fall into the trap of other comedies. The introduction is hilarious, but the characters don’t feel like they are trying too hard to be funny.
After the hilarious tutorial sequence in which you pick your first critter pal and learn some combat against your childhood friend (and get stung many times by wasps), you set off on your journey. A strange force corrupts monsters, and the guy tutoring you is trying to take over as the village elder. After being given a bizarre pocket universe by an old couple, the game begins in earnest. You are correct if you think Creature Keeper sounds a little bonkers, and it can be a bit challenging to keep track of, but it oozes charm.
While being ‘just pixel art,’ the visual design is striking, with exploration taking on a Metroidvania style that suits the game quite nicely. There is a wide range of creatures to collect and fight, and I was delighted to find a codex in the menu that stores all sorts of information about the creatures. There are still ‘learning’ points you accumulate through encountering them organically through gameplay, which makes them easier to tame and improve their stats.
Unlike many collector titles, Creature Keeper offers a unique monster-taming experience. Instead of battling creatures into submission, you tame them with food, with each monster having specific preferences. This refreshing approach reduces the grind and makes creature taming feel immersive. It's a significant departure from the ‘pound the tar out of everything’ approach, adding depth and strategy to the gameplay.
The combat took me by surprise as well. Usually, in this ‘We have Pokemon at home’ genre, fighting is a turn-based affair, but Creature Keeper bucks this trend with a fast-paced real-time combat system. Your creatures still fight alongside you, but you can swing swords while dodging attacks, healing yourself and your pet by petting them, and doing combo attacks to increase damage. It is a perfect example of keeping things simple, and Creature Keeper is delightful when fighting, albeit slightly chaotic at times.
In the overworld, you can generally avoid combat if desired, except for corrupted creatures that will attack you. Occasionally, progress is locked until you defeat the encounter, but there's time to prepare. Creature Keeper respects the player’s time, and I greatly appreciate that! Remember the little pocket dimension? It is a little hub area to return to from fast travel points and a garden to grow fruits for more taming.
All these things sound great, and the gameplay loop is wonderful. However, I found some issues. While you can access the overworld map through fast travel points, there is no minimap or navigation during gameplay. You have to rely on memory to get through the routes. The hands-off exploration style is not bad, but I sometimes found it confusing where to go next. I ran into my first major problem early on when I had to locate a temple for a quest, and the map layouts looked identical. I preferred a minimap so I could navigate the world better.
Balance also needs some work. Some mandatory boss fights are challenging, such as the dragons, which are very early in the game. Even though I was over-leveled, I kept getting killed, though there was no penalty for defeat.
I also ran into some frustrating bugs. The game froze whenever I activated a fast travel point outside the Pocket Garden. It worked after waiting a couple of minutes, though I had to rebooting twice.
The performance could use some optimization. I saw frequent stutters and frame drops during heavy action scenes, and the settings menu occasionally brought the FPS down to the mid-10s. Sometimes, the taming interface would bug out and be cut off on the screen on my Steam Deck.
Creature Keeper needs some TLC and patches to reach its full potential, but the fundamental game design is on point, and the world will keep you entertained. The game respects your time with the main story while maintaining enough side content to satisfy most players.
Overall, Creature Keeper is a solid enough experience on the Steam Deck, although the lack of options and aforementioned stuttering detract from it.
The fundamentals are all working, and while I couldn’t rebind any controls, the game comes with full controller support.
As usual, I tried two default options. There is no way to tweak graphical settings in Creature Keeper, not even screen resolution, so we are limited in options. With the stock 90Hz refresh rate and a full TDP, Creature Keeper was stable at this setting, although it will dip during combat scenes when a lot is happening on screen. Locking the frame rate to 60/60Hz made things smoother, and there isn’t much point going higher than this from my experience.
The power drain is surprisingly high if you don’t limit the TDP, with power spikes to 17 watts standard. The power draw was much higher than I expected because while Creature Keeper’s visuals are nice, they are nothing groundbreaking. Unfortunately, even with the unlocked TDP, accessing the menu still tanked the framerate.
Despite these issues, Creature Keeper is enjoyable if you need more battery life while playing. Once again, the lack of options hurts us, but a 5-watt TDP, framerate lock to 30FPS, and 90Hz refresh rate resulted in a decently stable experience. You will see more instability in combat, and the menu will slow things to a crawl, so this won’t be optimal for a truly smooth experience.
Of course, the significant advantage of this profile is battery life. I saw an average draw of 8 watts, a substantial gain in battery life. Do not turn on Half rate shading, as this will make the text unreadable.
Creature Keeper is available in English, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese, although some languages have not yet been fully implemented.
Creature Keeper is one of those games with the bare minimum accessibility requirements. You can adjust the volume and toggle Vync, but that is it for accessibility options.
While I have been critical of Creature Keeper, I still greatly enjoyed it. Creature Keeper is one of the most well-written ‘comedy’ games I’ve played in a while, and it comes with a refreshing take on the creature collecting genre. Fighting alongside your growing collection of monster pets does not get old, and the dialogue kept me engaged.
Despite this, I come away from Creature Keeper frustrated. All the weird freezes and interface bugs put me off, and the game's lack of handholding is both a strength and a weakness. The game is a decent performer on the Steam Deck, though the lack of accessibility options brings it down. I am glad the developers are aware of and working on the problems.
Creature Keeper will be much easier to recommend with some optimization and bug patches, but it has great atmosphere and solid gameplay, and it will definitely be an enjoyable time down the road.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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