Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes was provided by Dotemu for review. Thank you!
I wasn't sure what to expect from Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes. In fact, I hadn't even heard of it until I was offered the chance to review it, but I love the 2004 TV series, so I was interested to see if this game could live up to that standard. And I must say, I was pleasantly surprised.
Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes adopts the ever-popular roguelite approach, and given the premise of the Battlestar Galactica franchise, it makes a lot of sense for this game.
As captain of a Gunstar vessel, it's up to you to lead your ship and a convoy of civilian vessels through various procedurally generated sectors in order to meet up with the Battlestar Galactica, all while keeping the peace with the various colonist factions, upgrading your fleet and combat squadrons, and facing the ever-present (and growing) Cylon threat.
When it comes to gameplay, Scattered Hopes is a game of 2 halves. The first is managing your fleet. Here we are faced with opportunities or crises that can either help or hinder progress, as well as Points of Interest, where you can gather resources to keep your fleet alive and colonists happy.
This part of the game is mostly a balancing act. You'll be trying to gauge your relationship to the 3 factions in your crew, make sure you don't run out of resources, and gather as much as possible in order to upgrade your Gunstar and your Squadrons. The Crises, Opportunities, and POIs will all feed into this balancing act. Every choice you make advances time until the next battle (and FTL jump), so while it might seem mundane in nature, there are often times when you have to make a choice about what you want to do with the limited time you have, and Crises usually give you unavoidable negative effects you'll have to contend with.
These factors together ensured that even fleet management never seemed like a boring or tedious part of the game, keeping your mind engaged throughout as you try to figure out which choice is the lesser of two evils.
The other half of the gameplay is the battles themselves. At the end of each sector, you'll face a Cylon fleet that you will have to defend against until your FTL co-ordinates are locked in and you can make your escape. While the battles are real-time, you can pause at any point, and you will be pausing a lot.
The Cylons come in large numbers, and the game almost feels like a tower defense experience. Ships will warp in on the battlefield and continue towards your fleet, while the enemy ship will fire missiles. Your ships have limited range, so your input will be in the form of constantly repositioning them in order to head off incoming threats. Using the "tactical pause" feature to think and plan your maneuvers is essential to staying alive.
As the countdown towards your FTL jump continues, the enemy fleet grows in numbers to the point where you can't realistically defend against everything. This creates a hectic atmosphere and a certain sense of dread, as you often have to let your fleet take a beating before you can jump to safety, very reminiscent of the TV series.
Once we die, the run is over, and we'll be rewarded with experience points and fate points based on how well we did. Experience points allow us to level up, unlocking more potential items and squadrons to purchase at in-sector shops, while Fate Points can give advantages in future runs.
While the Fate Points do offer some useful benefits, such as more resources to use or the ability to retry a battle if you lose, I found these bonuses to be somewhat moderate compared to other roguelites. Don't expect there to be exponential improvements in power between runs; these are modest upgrades that might give an edge if skill level almost got you through a battle.
Because of this, improvement in Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes will come as much from your own skills improving as you learn the game, as it will from the progression mechanics giving you advantages. Learning which ships to use where, and the best time to use your vital Gunstar abilities like a flak bombardment or nuclear missile, is crucial. This game won't be for everyone, but as space strategy roguelites go, it's a good one.
To get Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes to boot on the Steam Deck, I had to go into Steam Game Properties and force it to use Proton 10.0-4; otherwise, it would crash back to Steam during the opening logos.
The game has no controller support, so you'll be using a keyboard+mouse controller layout, which the game defaulted to. Fortunately, the game is slower-paced, and using the touchpad is a perfectly fine way to play.
There are no graphical options in the game, regardless of whether you play on the Steam Deck or not. I'd recommend you limit the FPS to 30 using the in-game option. This helps with stability and also improves battery life. You won't be able to maintain 30 the entire time; certain screens do drop into the 20s, but thankfully, these are just dialogue scenes.
Power draw tends to be around 13W-15W during battles, spiking to 20W during fleet management, which gives us a battery life of around 3 hours on a Steam Deck OLED, and around 2 hours on a Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures were around 60 °C-65 °C.
The UI is rather small on the Steam Deck, and there is no UI scaling either, so be prepared to have some difficult-to-read text to contend with. You may wish to alter the controller layout in Steam Input to add a magnifier.
Some text is hard to read on the Steam Deck's display, and there is no UI scaling option. Screenshake can be disabled.
You can pause the game at any point during a battle to issue orders. There are also customizable difficulty settings and rebindable controls.
While the battle system is somewhat simplistic in nature, the tension created by constant crises, overwhelming enemy odds, and infighting amongst your fleet allows Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes to create a great atmosphere worthy of the Battlestar Galactica name.
Performance on the Steam Deck is acceptable at 30 FPS. While the game has no controller support, almost everything is controlled via the mouse and space bar, which are mapped to the right touchpad and the A button, respectively, making it easy to control.
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.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era was provided by Hooded Horse for review. Thank you!
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is a surprise return to the franchise, and it is a welcome one. While the Heroes franchise had a release in 2015 with Might & Magic Heroes VII, the last mainline title was all the way back in 2006 with Heroes of Might and Magic V. Twenty years is a long time to wait, so I was surprised to see Olden Era’s announcement.
Other studios have tried to live up to this iconic series. Songs of Conquest probably came the closest to reviving the franchise in my eyes, and other titles such as Heroes of Science and Fiction and Songs of Silence are also worth playing. All the same, it is great to see Olden Era come out this year in early access. There is a lot to unpack, and Olden Era does a great job overall.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era has a decent amount of content and polish in the launch build, including plenty of skirmish maps, a fleshed-out tutorial, the first part of the campaign mode, multiplayer, and a work-in-progress map editor to tinker with. That is plenty to dig into for this Early Access launch, and the first thing I did was jump into the tutorial. It does a great job of teaching players the mechanics, and while Olden Era is not the most complex of strategy games, I recommend people check the tutorials out.
To those unfamiliar with the Might and Magic franchise, the gameplay loop is relatively straightforward. Players take on heroes, exploring an expansive fantasy world, building up armies, and managing cities. Locations provide buffs and resources, with enemy armies roaming the land and defending important places like temples and caves. They get stronger as time passes, so you need a careful balance.
If you wade in too soon, your army might not be strong enough to deal with the bands of monsters, who are typical pests. Wait too long, and the armies might be too powerful to handle. It’s a good way to dynamically change the gameplay of a map, and I quite like how the game approaches this. Usually, heroes have limited movement per turn that can sometimes be replenished by map pickups, but the campaign will have phases where you have free exploration as much as you please, which is fun. Between the settlement management, researching buildings, training armies, and exploration, there is always something to do.
The battles are what one might expect for the genre. They are turn-based on a hex-grid battlefield, where you can move units around and slaughter everything in your path like every healthy-minded person likes to do in their life. Olden Era provides some nice tactical options, including unit abilities, a huge array of spells that can be used offensively or defensively, and your champion hero can also attack units. There is also an autobattle function if you just want to spectate, although I have found the casualty rate will likely be higher than just fighting yourself. This is what happens when I delegate to my lessers. I had to execute so many of my minions for their mistakes.
On the campaign, I was pleasantly surprised by the production quality on this. We only have access to the first portion of this campaign at launch, and I really hope we get more of the story sooner rather than later. While the narrative involves the usual fantasy shenanigans, I rather enjoyed the premise. A mysterious, eternal fire has infected parts of the Olden world, turning people insane and devastating villages. That is a damn cool idea, to be honest.
You get to play as a big, minotaur general guy whose queen is a giant dragon, with the job of investigating what is behind the pestilence. While there is no voice acting during missions, we get some great, semi-animated cutscenes with gorgeous art and voice acting then. A lot of care has gone into the campaign so far, and I have found the maps to be the right mix of challenge while allowing for plenty of exploration. I love level design when the landscape itself can be a captivating character, and Olden Era’s map design makes it a delight to play. The visuals and music are great across the board.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is keen to make up for a difficult decade in the series, and the Early Access version of the game impressed me in both its scope and gameplay. I only have two gripes right now besides the usual early access conundrum of playing an unfinished experience, and those are performance and tiny text. While I did not encounter many bugs, Olden Era can be tricky to run well. It might not be Baldur's Gate 3, but there is plenty of environmental eye candy on these maps, and that ate into the Deck’s processing power. This is no dealbreaker, and optimization is in the works, but it is something to consider.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era has a Playable rating through Valve, while ProtonDB’s rating is Platinum. The main issues listed include small in-game text and requiring the use of a keyboard for some functions. Handheld fans will be happy to hear that, for the most part, Olden Era runs fairly well on the Steam Deck, although there are a few caveats to contend with.
Right now, there is no interface scaling to speak of, so some in-game text is very challenging to read on the Steam Deck. More than once, I had to use the magnifier function to get by, and it was an uncomfortable experience for my old man eyes. Hopefully, UI scaling is high on the developer’s agenda, as it would help a long way. I also recommend manually changing the joystick sensitivity in the Steam Deck’s controller settings to 50%. Right now, there is no option within the game to adjust this, and by default, the controls are a little loose.
Performance-wise, I did not have any major issues, and a Keyboard (WASD) and Mouse profile did everything I needed to have a good time with Olden Era. I did have to use a low graphics preset, however, to deal with all the environmental effects on screen. The game is surprisingly intensive even on modern PC hardware, and is very easy on the eyes. Don’t even try to lower TDP with Olden Era right now, because even with the default TDP, the game struggled to hit 60FPS on low settings, and it ate through the battery. Locking the frame rate to 30FPS/90hz refresh rate was disappointing, but at least the game was stable with the cap.
With these settings, I saw around 12 watts on average, which provides around 4 hours of battery life on the Steam Deck OLED. I’m sure that with a few patches, the performance will improve. For now, Olden Era is playable on the Steam Deck with some issues.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
Olden Era is a strange mix of good and bad as accessibility options go. There are a bunch of nice colorblind options like tweaking the colors on screen, Vsync, invert camera, edge scrolling, camera panning speed, and move speed. You can also change keybinds, although no dedicated controller support is in the game at launch, and a decent number of graphical options to tweak.
The lack of mouse scrolling speed can be managed as mentioned, but the small text size and lack of UI scaling were significant hurdles for me on the Steam Deck. This is a dialogue-heavy game with a lot of text and tooltips on screen, and it was challenging to read them properly without getting eye strain. Not everyone will have this issue, and it’s not a dealbreaker, but it is important to note.
I seem to be the go-to guy for the Hooded Horse publisher library of video games here, and Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era shows great promise from what I have played. It might be Early Access with a long way to go, but the content and mechanics on offer are plentiful, and fans of the genre will appreciate the core gameplay and the narrative in the campaign. Plenty of skirmish maps, multiplayer, and the map editor at launch offer enough on the buffet table, and so far, I really like how Olden Era is shaping up.
It needs work with optimization, and I want to see gamepad support for certain. The experience on the Steam Deck is a little rough due to the tiny text size and controller issues, but there is plenty of time for fixes to come in.
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.
Airborne Empire was provided by Stray Fawn Publishing for review. Thank you!
When it comes to the city-builder genre, I'm amazed by how one of the oldest video game genres is still finding new ways to present unique challenges and gameplay mechanics. Airborne Empire is one such example, putting players in charge of an airship that is entirely customizable as they embark on a journey to explore the world from above.
While there are survival elements to Airborne Empire, I wouldn't necessarily bunch this one in with your traditional games in that genre, such as Banished or Frostpunk. Yes, you do have to gather food, water, and fuel for your airship to survive, but the focus is on expanding and improving its capabilities, not just on providing the essentials.
The purpose of the game is to explore new areas and eliminate the pirate threat in that area to prevent the sky pirates from attacking both your airship and the defenseless kingdoms on the ground. While you do this, you'll have to provide for your citizens, research new structures, and complete the odd sidequest for some juicy loot, such as blueprints for new structures.
Airborne Empire's structure puts it at odds with your traditional city-builders. While you can build whatever you want on your airship, the game feels less like an open-ended sandbox and more akin to what the developers sell it as, an RPG. You will largely be doing quests for the kingdoms below, which often involve traveling to somewhere nearby and expending some of your resources to aid them, and there's little reason to do anything but the quests in the game.
The game is fully open world and quite large, but it does feel as though certain parts of the map serve little purpose. There are only a few resource types in the game, which are fairly abundant pretty much everywhere from the start, and the focus will be on visiting a city, completing its quests, and moving on to the next city. Admittedly, there are some optional side quests that encourage you to explore further, but even then, some parts of the map feel a little superfluous.
Then we move on to the combat in Airborne Empire, which is fairly laid back. Your main defense against the sky pirates will be your Defense Towers and, later on, your own planes. The Defense Towers are pretty place-and-forget structures; assign workers to them, and they will automatically fire at any enemy within range. Then you have manual weapons, like cannons for ground structures and combat planes for other aircraft, which are as simple as selecting them, clicking the enemy you wish to attack, and letting your workers handle it from there. There is little "action" to the combat, but that suits a city-builder like this.
Fulfilling the basic needs of your citizens is a non-issue, and "progress" is made in the form of expanding your arsenal of weapons in order to take down the sky pirate threat pretty early on. As you expand, your citizens will demand more of you, but by that point, I either already had the resources or acquiring them was easy, so I could immediately fulfill their needs.
Airborne Empire is an enjoyable time. It's an odd mix of a role-playing adventure mixed with a city-builder, although neither side has too much depth to it. There are quests, but they follow a similar "go here and spend resources, then return" pattern. While I'm sure you could make a pretty airship, my build was rather utilitarian, and there are limited benefits to designing a well-organized and structured base, as area-of-effect buildings aren't really a thing in Airborne Empire. A clinic on one side of your airship will serve the other side, no problem, for example.
As is often the case with strategy games, controls are an issue for Airborne Empire on the Steam Deck. You'll need to use a custom controller layout as the game has no built-in controller support. Fortunately, there are already custom layouts available made by the community, so head into the Steam Input community layouts for the game and pick one that suits your preferred scheme.
Airborne Empire supports 1280x800 as a resolution, but the graphics don't scale well. I would recommend choosing the "Custom" graphics option and setting everything to "Very Low". The "Very Low" preset itself doesn't actually set everything to Very Low, for some reason.
The game exhibits strange behavior, and in certain areas, performance tanks to 20 FPS for seemingly no reason. My only suggestion to mitigate this is to set the GPU clock manually to 1600 MHz, as the Steam Deck doesn't seem to ramp up the GPU to handle this sudden performance hit. With the manual GPU clock, you can mostly hold 30 FPS.
Using the Very Low settings, you can generally expect to play at 30 FPS, but occasionally you will experience drops into the 20s. There is also occasional stutter, usually when rotating the camera to look at new pieces of the world, or when visual effects play for the first time in a while, likely due to loading new assets. As well as the 20 FPS issue described above, but the game is on the cusp of playability, I would say.
If you are very desperate to avoid frame rate drops, you can disable the day/night cycle in the options menu, which does improve performance slightly; you will get drops, but they are less severe, mostly to around 27-28 FPS.
Power draw was around 18W-20W due to the manual GPU clock; without the manual clock, usage is more around 16-18W. Temperatures were around 65-70 °C. Expect battery life to be around 2.5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED and around 1.5 hours on a Steam Deck LCD.
Airborne Empire has little in the way of accessibility. All dialogue is text-based, and you can reduce the effect of sudden light flashes. There is no UI scaling, which can be problematic as certain text is small and somewhat hard to read on the Steam Deck, but it is legible.
Airborne Empire tries to merge a role-playing adventure experience with a city-builder, and while neither area excels at what they do, the game is enjoyable for a playthrough of the Adventure Mode. I can't see myself returning for repeats or trying out the non-story modes, though.
Performance on the Steam Deck is rather poor, though, given the game's slow-paced nature, arguably still playable. Do expect to have to fiddle a little with the controls, though. If possible, Airborne Empire is best enjoyed on a more powerful device than 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.
ALL WILL FALL was provided by tinyBuild for review. Thank you!
After trying out a playtest of ALL WILL FALL over a year ago, I was excited to jump back into it for this review and see what had changed. While the core gameplay (which was good) hasn't changed much, there are plenty of optimizations, quality-of-life features, and a lot of new content.
The gameplay of ALL WILL FALL revolves around surviving in a flooded world. Using more permanent structures, such as old skyscrapers and boats, you will construct scaffolding and walkways between them to expand your colony and acquire new resources. It's a pretty unique concept as far as "city-builders" go, and it makes some refreshing changes compared to others.
Rather than focusing on luxuries, ALL WILL FALL places the emphasis on providing essentials. A good chunk of your time will be spent on researching and setting up good water and food production chains. Because of this, there aren't too many resources to concern yourself with, and your citizens' needs are pretty much just food, water, and leisure.
Despite this, the game still feels engaging and challenging. As your colony expands, you need to invest in new research to find new ways of gathering resources, such as fishing and salvaging boats, cranes to lift up debris that floats past your colony, and more advanced ways of demolishing ruins to acquire their resources.
But what really makes ALL WILL FALL stand apart is the dynamic world you live in. Depending on the scenario/mission you're playing, you will have to build around unique challenges. Perhaps the sea level is always falling, maybe it's always rising? You'll have to design your colony so that it can be flexible and move with the changing sea levels, not to mention the natural disasters that can happen, which can entirely annihilate your colony if not built correctly (I lost over an hour's progress to a Hell Rain storm, as seen below).
This, combined with the physics simulation that requires stable structures, makes ALL WILL FALL a challenging experience. This isn't a fire-and-forget game, where you get your basic production in place and forget about it, because almost certainly something will go wrong and you'll be scrambling to find a fix for the situation.
There are also random events in the game, which can throw up interesting scenarios that can help or harm you. The effects of these are usually on the minor side, but they are a welcome sight as they often include a goal or target for you to work toward. Plus, they often give you little rewards for doing well, which helps out a lot.
While there is a "campaign", it's more like 8 fairly distinct scenarios that have unlock conditions that can only be achieved in previous scenarios. They don't necessarily follow on from each other, and all of them are technically available from the start. Game progress comes in the form of researching new buildings and structures in the tech-tree, which resets with each scenario, so you may well find yourself sticking to a preferred scenario instead of trying to work through the "campaign."
Rather than a typical Sandbox mode, where players are given infinite resources and an easy ride, ALL WILL FALL's Sandbox mode allows you to select a map, as well as a scenario type (such as constantly rising water you must adapt to), and then specify the amount of colonists and resources you start with. There's Steam Workshop support for custom maps, which will definitely help increase the game's replayability. It will be interesting to see what unique and challenging maps the community comes up with.
I don't really have many issues. Yes, sometimes building can be difficult on certain maps due to their verticality, which can add a bit of confusion depending on your viewing angle. And given the fairly limited number of colonists, I would have perhaps liked to have seen more personal traits on each colonist so we could get to know them a little better, a la Rimworld, as opposed to them just being a number. But by and large, this ticks the boxes it sets out to, being a challenging city-builder that presents problems most others fail to.
After playing a playtest of ALL WILL FALL back in January 2025, I was concerned about how the game would perform on the Steam Deck, particularly as that build gave us unplayable performance. I'm pleased to say that plenty of optimization has occurred in the meantime.
Another new addition is support for controllers/gamepads. It was disabled by default for me, but you can go into the game options on the main menu and under the Controls tab, tick "Enable Gamepad". It isn't perfect, at least not in the review build I had, so I would recommend remapping your right touchpad to function as a mouse and clicking the right touchpad as a left click, which makes building much easier. For camera controls, the gamepad support does work well. You can also rebind some controls using the in-game settings menu.
Thanks to the aforementioned optimizations, ALL WILL FALL can hold 40 FPS (with occasional stutters) on the Steam Deck with the right settings. The CPU usage is fairly low, so the performance difference between small and large bases is quite minimal.
We drop the Shadow Resolution down to 512, which still allows decent-looking shadows on the small Steam Deck screen. The low Shadow Distance doesn't actually affect much, as the game is fairly generous with its shadow distances. Faraway objects lack shadows, but anything close still looks good.
Power draw stays fairly average thanks to generally low-end CPU usage, and was around the 12W-14W range, so you can expect a playtime of about 3.5-4 hours on a Steam Deck OLED, and around 2.5-3 hours on a Steam Deck LCD. The game doesn't push the Steam Deck too hard, so temperatures were around 60 °C.
I would also recommend setting the UI Scale in the Graphics Options to 90%, which gives us the largest possible text size without causing overlap between UI elements. This makes the text and UI elements fairly easy to read.
ALL WILL FALL doesn't have many accessibility options. You can disable screen shake, adjust UI scaling, and rebind controls. All dialogue is also in written form.
ALL WILL FALL puts an interesting twist on the city-builder genre. Whether it's the natural disasters, changing sea levels, or the complaints of your citizens, the game keeps you on your toes, and everything can literally "fall" in moments. A little more personal detail on your colonists wouldn't have gone amiss, however.
Performance on Steam Deck is much improved since the earlier playtests, and I'm happy to say that the game is fully playable on the Deck at 40 FPS with some slight stutters, as long as you modify the controls slightly to your liking.
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.
MENACE was provided by Hooded Horse for review. Thank you!
I was a massive fan of Battle Brothers by Overhype Studios, and MENACE is their long-awaited next game. They are published by the awesome folks at Hooded Horse, and we were lucky enough to get an early look at the game’s Early Access state before its launch. I seem to be our main point of contact for Hooded Horse titles, and I was delighted to get the chance to try the game firsthand after my experience with the demo last autumn.
Given the game’s early development, it’s important to stress that this is in Early Access and a lot of things need work. I play a lot of Early Access games, and my review philosophy when covering them is reviewing them based on their content and polish as it stands, rather than considering future patches. With this in mind, I’ve been impressed by the depth of MENACES’ gameplay and setting.
Despite the rough edges, this commercial build for MENACE is pretty comprehensive. While the demo only focused on a vertical slice of the core combat gameplay, the early access version contains plenty of content to dig into.
Players take on the role of a professional military corps dealing with a variety of foes in an interplanetary scope. If you have played Battle Brothers before, it's easy to tell that Overhype Studios has learned many lessons, with much of their ethos is carried over into MENACE. In my preview, I called it ‘sci-fi Battle Brothers writ large’, and that is certainly true! After a short tutorial to learn the basics of combat, the main game kicks off in earnest.
The best way to describe MENACE’s gameplay is to think of it like the XCOM games, balancing base management and punishing combat into a delicious package. Players must build trust with several factions, manage their budding squad of mercenaries, and carry out operations across the Wayback star system. These operations are procedurally generated and come in six types, and each of those consists of a string of missions that have branching paths. I would have preferred more curated story paths, but this is in the works for later updates, and the current mission system is pretty varied with some nice voice acting. The narrative is typical sci-fi corporate intrigue and pirates being assholes, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
The visuals are pretty nice for a turn-based game like this, especially when you have the specs to jack all the graphics up to full. Combine the great unit models with the destructible terrain and great sound design, and there are great guts in the core gameplay overall.
Gameplay is high-risk, high-reward on both sides. While the game gives a ton of different tools and customization options for the player with high lethality, the same is true for the enemies you will face, and it brings an emphasis on careful tactics. The stakes are high, and while the challenge curve is pretty brutal, I love the attention to detail. With the amount you can tweak your squad in base management and all the different loadouts, there’s a ton of replayability just off this alone.
This is a pretty hard game even on the standard difficulty settings, and playthroughs are in for the long haul, too. It’s not quite as complex and lengthy as something like Terra Invicta, but it’s not for the light-hearted. Despite losing many fights, however, I’ve always enjoyed myself. This is backed up by great sound design. When my troops fired upon a group of horrible pirate scum, I revelled in their sounds of pain when the guns went off. I swear I’m a normal person! I was impressed by the sound in the playable demo, but it seems Overhype Studios has made improvements across the board.
There’s a lot to do with the management. We got a glimpse at the squad loadouts during the demo, and I love games that let me organize my armies of destruction. There are four squad leaders available to you in the beginning, with the opportunity to recruit more through the campaign, depending on which factions you ally with, and there are a bunch of vehicles, weapons, and perks to attach to your team for missions. You can also access the Black market to pick up more equipment through a barter system, as well as upgrade the battle cruiser for additional options in missions.
Speaking of the demo, I do wish they kept the custom battle mode from the beta to mess around with, as I thought it was a great way to introduce players to the mechanics. My main concern right now about MENACE is performance, and you will need a pretty powerful system to play it optimally. It’s important to remember this is an Early Access game, and while there are plenty of graphical options to tweak with DLSS and FSR upscaling, there’s a lot of work to be done on the optimization.
While MENACE doesn’t really do anything new for the genre on both sides of the gameplay loop, it does enough right that I’m finding the game rather absorbing.
MENACE has been given a ‘Playable’ rating by Valve for compatibility on the Steam Deck, while ProtonDB has a Gold rating for the game right now. While the game can certainly be played with the upscaling additions and the Steam Deck’s trackpad controls, it’s important to note that this isn’t the optimal way to play the game.
Back when I played MENACE in beta, I found the game nearly unplayable on the Steam Deck. Overhype Studios has brought a large array of options to tweak since, and clearly, they have done some work under the hood these past few months. To my pleasant surprise, the game is more playable now.
To achieve this, I did a medium graphics preset with FSR3 on Performance, with a native resolution, 50hz refresh rate, and an uncapped TDP. With these settings, the game had a fairly stable 50 FPS in most cases, although I still saw frequent frame drops during moments like terrain being destroyed or during gunfire. A default Keyboard and Mouse (WASD) setup allowed me to access all the standard controls as well.
The graphics don't look great like this on the Deck’s 800p screen, but this was the best option I had to make things somewhat playable. Lower settings make the shadows and textures look like someone plunged the console into an uncleaned toilet bowl, and higher settings tanked the framerate. The power draw is fairly high as I expected, though the 50 Hz refresh rate on my Steam Deck OLED brought the average down to 12 watts.
The main problem I found is still the lack of interface scaling, which makes reading text difficult. Until some font scaling is implemented, those who have trouble reading on a small screen will struggle.
MENACE is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, and Japanese, although only English has voiceovers right now.
Overhype Studios has included a decent toolset of accessibility options for launch. Plenty of options can be freely adjusted, including text speed, tooltip delay, unit movement speed, and several ways to pause gameplay during enemy action. There are also the usual things like VSync, DLSS, and FSR3 support, framerate capping, and some nice keyboard and mouse tweaks for how you want to control the camera.
There isn’t any colorblind support in the game right now, and there is no controller support.
It is early days yet for MENACE, but I’m already impressed by what's on offer. I’ve probably played better turn-based tactics games in my time, such as Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, and I’ve also played games with better management systems. However, it’s the combination of the two that blends into something truly captivating. The game still needs work, and I would prefer to wait for some interface optimization before I’m comfortable playing it on the Steam Deck long term, but fans of Battle Brothers can expect Overhype Studios to be in this for the long haul.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Anno 117: Pax Romana was provided by Ubisoft for review. Thank you!
Anno 117: Pax Romana has come at a critical time for Ubisoft, when consumer confidence in the publisher is at an all-time low; it really needs to pull through and deliver the best Anno experience yet. However, Anno 117's familiarity is both good for those coming back to the series and its biggest downfall.
The game gives you 2 very simple options to start a game: either a Campaign game or an Endless one. Regardless of which option you choose, you can then enable multiplayer to bring your friends into the game. Curiously, there's no online matchmaking in Anno 117, so you have to play with those on your friend's list, which will no doubt disappoint some.
I spent most of my time playing through the game's campaign, and I must say, aside from the slightly off-putting voice acting, the campaign is actually quite enjoyable to play through. The characters are somewhat decently written, and it largely feels like a Sandbox game, just with a few cutscenes sprinkled here and there, and frequent events as you progress to keep things fresh and interesting. But by and large, you can play how you want.
Although set in the Roman Empire and Britain during 117 AD, Anno 117 has very little historical accuracy. All of the characters in the game are seemingly fictional, as are the battles and events that occur during the campaign, which feels like a real shame. One of the intriguing parts of historical games like this is seeing a portrayal of historic events. This is, by and large, Ubisoft's own take on the era, filled with people being far more reasonable and understanding than you would expect.
The gameplay of Anno 117 itself is largely unchanged from the Annos of yesteryear. You aim to create a city comprised of various classes, providing food, public services, clothing, and ultimately luxuries as you upgrade your dwellings from lower-class to upper-class residencies. It does this as well as ever, with the resources of each island forcing you to expand and trade with ships to progress beyond the basics. Anno is primarily an economy-management series, and Anno 117 stays true to this philosophy.
However, that is also the problem with Anno 117: it's very similar to all the Anno games that came before it. And while the new setting has some interesting quirks, namely if you're building in "Albion", there are swamps you have to deal with, it really doesn't change the basic gameplay. I feel like at this stage, Anno needed something new to give it a kickstart, and this game just isn't it. If anything, some longstanding parts of Anno have been made worse.
The UI I found to be quite... cumbersome. I'm not quite sure what Ubisoft thought was wrong with the UI in previous Anno games, but Anno 117 has a peculiar combination of horizontal and vertical tabs that, when combined, end up being needlessly confusing. The Anno series had already refined its UI over many iterations, and Anno 117 is trying to take a different direction, but it doesn't work well. Even after a few hours, I was still making constant mistakes when trying to find the correct build menu.
I also experienced some issues with the game. I experienced visual glitches in some cutscenes and visual artifacts on certain buildings, such as the Mud Driers. Audio also overlaps; if you are zoomed in on your city or a ship when a cutscene starts, for example, you will hear the ambient sounds throughout the cutscene, completely overshadowing any voices. This can also happen if you complete quests close together, resulting in overlapping voices. There are little things like that here and there that really let Anno 117 down.
The biggest question Anno 117: Pax Romana leaves me with is, what does this game add to the series? Mostly, I would say it's just the new campaign, and even though it's a good one, it might not be worth that price tag. In terms of gameplay, not much has really changed here. If I had to pick an Anno game to play, I would still choose Anno 1800, thanks to its more straightforward UI, better performance, and, frankly, a time period that lends itself to more interesting gameplay.
Unfortunately, Anno 117: Pax Romana is a bit of a pain to play on the Steam Deck. I had to use Proton Experimental just to get the game to boot. Once it does boot, the game does support 1280x800 as a resolution, so we can avoid the black borders. But, for whatever reason, gamepad support seems to be broken when playing the game on Linux/Proton, meaning the new controller support that Anno 117 enjoys isn't really of much use to us here; we have to use a keyboard layout to play on Steam Deck.
I would also recommend that you choose the "Medium (TV)" UI Scaling option, as it's the largest and makes most of the text in-game easy enough to read, but you might still struggle with some.
As for the actual performance of the game, it's... poor. You'll need to run on Low settings, and I recommend setting the in-game FSR upscaling to "Ultra Performance". You should also lock the game to 30 FPS using the SteamOS frame limiter.
With these settings, a game with a moderately sized city manages to hold 30 FPS, albeit with frequent stutters, but I ran the in-game benchmark, which places you in a much larger city with more going on, and we did start to see some troubles. Stuttering became more frequent, and in very large cities, we saw the FPS drop into the low 20s.
The full benchmark tests on these settings are as follows: FPS Average: 47.7, FPS 5% Lows: 25 (due to frequent stuttering). 80% of the time, we were GPU-bound, not CPU-bound.
Power draw was around 21W-22W, with temperatures being around 70C-75C. Expect around 2 hours of battery life on a Steam Deck OLED and around 80-90 minutes on a Steam Deck LCD.
Anno 117 features colorblind filters for the three main types of color blindness. There is also UI scaling available, as well as the ability to change text to use Sans-Serif fonts instead of Serif ones. Subtitles are available, and you can also adjust notification length to keep notifications readable on-screen for longer (or shorter).
Anno 117 is a competent city builder, but the Roman/British theming doesn't really do it for me, especially when it's all fictional anyway... The game feels like a step down from Anno 1800 in almost every way except graphically. If you're interested in the campaign of Anno 117, I'd say it might be worth a look, but for sandbox/multiplayer gameplay, I'd still say Anno 1800 is king for me.
Anno 117 is technically playable on the Steam Deck, but I'm not sure I would recommend buying the game to play it solely on the Deck. Hopefully, updates to Proton and/or the game will fix controller support, which would help, but the performance is troubling, especially for multiplayer games.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Jurassic World Evolution 3 was provided by Frontier Developments for review. Thank you!
Jurassic World Evolution is a series that hasn't missed yet, and I'm pleased to say that Jurassic World Evolution 3 is no exception. There's a lot to like about this one, and if you are looking for a management game for the Steam Deck, this should definitely be near the top of your short list.
I'll admit, I haven't played the previous two Jurassic World Evolution games. My last foray into the series was Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis on the original Xbox console, which I adored. Jurassic World Evolution 3 really does feel like...well, an evolution of that game, but improved in every way.
It's always a fear with management games that they will over-complicate things, but Jurassic World Evolution 3 seems like it has a great balance of having enough depth to things like your dinosaurs' needs for their enclosures, as well as your guests needs, but presenting them in a simple way, where you know immediately what the issue is, and the solutions are easily accessible. One example is that when adding foliage to an enclosure, the foliage liked by dinosaurs is marked, so you know what kind of foliage you should be working with.
The campaign mode also does an excellent job of gradually easing you into park management. The first few missions each teach you new gameplay mechanics at a steady pace, so by the time you're left on your own, you should have a good grasp on how to do everything in the game. There are also challenges, which set scenarios for you to beat and offer cosmetic rewards for your parks. You can, of course, play in an open Sandbox mode with customizable settings.
The amount of gameplay mechanics at play here helps you feel like there's always something to do. You can organize expeditions to obtain new fossils, which will let you increase your DNA pool for certain species and learn to breed new dinosaurs or improve existing ones. You can research various technologies, such as new medicines to combat potential ailments your dinosaurs can develop. This is on top of all the regular park management, such as guest attractions and designing your dinosaur enclosures. It prevents the age-old problem in management/strategy games of staring at your screen, unsure of what to do next.
My favorite feature, and one in Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, is the ability to control the vehicles in the game. While you can assign the AI to manage things like the park ranger, which checks on the welfare of your animals, and the helicopter, which tranquilizes dinosaurs for transportation, you also can drive (and utilize) these vehicles yourself, allowing you to explore and interact with your park and dinosaurs either on foot, in a jeep, or via helicopter. It's such a nice feature, and the game still holds up visually on ground level.
Speaking of visuals, they are also quite nice in the game, with ray-tracing available on devices that support it. The water looks good even without ray-tracing, though. The natural trees are sort of haphazardly clipped inside each other on most maps, and it makes for a weird visual effect, so I was careful not to place trees close together manually. Dinosaurs are animated and portrayed well, even with animations of them playing with each other, which is a really nice addition.
Jurassic World Evolution 3 is quickly becoming my favorite management game of 2025. There are tons of content here to keep you busy, over 85 species of dinosaurs in your park, plenty of different attractions, different game modes, including the highly customizable Sandbox mode. I think they hit it out of the park with this one.
Jurassic World Evolution 3 is a joy to play on the Steam Deck. It has good controller support for both menus and gameplay, it supports 1280x800 as a resolution, and it has a built-in graphics preset for the Steam Deck, which the game defaults to.
I recommend you stick with the developer preset settings and apply a 30 FPS frame rate limit. Using these settings, you can keep the game relatively stable at 30 FPS, even with a bigger park. Flattening the camera when zoomed out to view over large distances can drop framerates into the high 20s, but it's an edge case, and I still found the game entirely playable.
The power draw on these settings was around 14W-19W, and temperatures were around 60C-70C. A Steam Deck OLED can expect to get around 3 hours of battery life, and a Steam Deck LCD can expect around 2 hours.
Jurassic World Evolution 3 has some accessibility options. It can mute all other in-game voices when mission dialogue is spoken and output in Mono audio, so all speakers receive the same sound. It also has subtitles for all spoken dialogue, which can be adjusted in size and have a background to make them more legible.
You can also apply colorblind filters to the UI for the 3 main types of colorblindness and a high contrast mode. Camera shaking can also be disabled.
Jurassic World Evolution 3 feels like it's not far off from the end goal for this kind of game. It has great management tools and UI, and it's easy to understand what's going on. You have extra niceties like exploring your own park and using your own vehicles, and the progression with unlocking new dinosaurs and designing their enclosures is always exciting.
The game also runs surprisingly well on the Steam Deck. The controls have been fine-tuned for gamepads, and it shows. I would have difficulty deciding whether I prefer playing this on a controller or keyboard and mouse. Performance is perfectly playable, being a pretty stable 30 FPS with the occasional dips here and there, but it was good enough for me to play and enjoy the game.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted was provided by Electronic Arts for review. Thank you!
The classic casual strategy game is back. Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted brings the original game up to modern standards, complete with controller support, updated visuals, and some nice surprises. Has this classic stood the test of time? Let's find out.
Regarding the core gameplay, Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted hasn't touched the original formula. The game is still a "lane defense" game, where you are given five lanes to defend with your army of various plant types, spending the generated sunshine wisely to keep the zombies from your house. It works well, although it is perhaps prone to the weakness of the same strategy working pretty much every time.
Once you find a strategy that works, you can repeat it repeatedly and keep winning. That's a shame, with the developers saying that the fun is in finding new strategies. That's all very well and good, but many players will stick with a winning strategy and won't waste time finding different ones to come up with the same, or worse, result.
The game does try to switch things up a little by introducing other plant types, and plenty of them, the day/night system, where resources might be more limited at night, and slight adjustments to the map, but in reality, the night levels often ended up being easier for me due to how overpowered the sunshine-generating Mushroom is. The map change just requires a small adjustment to strategy for the first few placements. I found myself breezing through every level in the game, despite having never played Plants vs. Zombies before, without losing a single level. So this isn't a game to play if you want a strategic challenge.
One of the new additions to the game is the Hardcore Mode, where you have to beat every level in the game without dying, or else your progress resets. This does make the game harder, as it's not just beating every level without dying; you have to do so while being restricted to certain plant types. The downside is, the Hardcore Mode doesn't unlock until you've already beaten every level, so it's more of a "New Game+" mode.
That's a common theme with the game; even the versus and co-op multiplayer modes are locked behind beating the first 10 or so levels before you can use them. I have no idea why these are not available from level 1. If you bought this game to play with a friend, they're going to have to sit next to you and watch you beat the first 25% of the game before they can join in. The "campaign" itself is also not co-op; it's just one-off matches that you can play, which feels like a missed opportunity to progress together.
Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy my time with Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted, but some of the enhancements feel more like something that most games would introduce in a patch. Essentially, an upgrade in visual clarity, a New Game+ mode, another mode that essentially changes between night and day as you play the level, and controller support.
If you are a Plants vs. Zombies fan, you'll likely love this game; it's more of the same, with some slight enhancements. But if you had a middling response to the original back in 2009, I'm not sure Replanted does enough to draw in anyone who wasn't already a fan. On the plus side, Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted is far from a full-priced title, and for $20, it can provide a good few hours of enjoyment.
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted works great on the Steam Deck. It has controller support, which works very well, and the game can easily run at 90 FPS throughout. There are also no graphical settings to adjust. The game runs at 1280x800 by default, and thus, there are no black borders around the game.
The power draw manages to stay low, around 9W-11W. Temperatures were around 55C-60C. You can expect a battery life of around 5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED and around 4 hours on a Steam Deck LCD.
As a side note, the game does not support Remote Play Together, and the co-op/versus modes are local only, so you would need to dock your Steam Deck to play multiplayer.
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted doesn't have much accessibility. You can adjust the cursor speed, and that's all. All dialogue in the game is text-based.
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted doesn't bring a whole lot to the table, but it is the "definitive" edition of the game, and given the very reasonable price tag, if you were already a Plants vs. Zombies fan and you want to replay the game, it's definitely worth diving back in.
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted runs perfectly on the Steam Deck. It supports the controller well, runs at 1280x800, and can be played at 90 FPS with no issues. It's definitely a Best on Deck title.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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The game was provided by Square Enix for review. Thank you!
As a self-proclaimed Final Fantasy aficionado, I’ve certainly got some glaring, albeit rare, omissions in my otherwise spotless record. There are titles that I have a particular affinity towards, with Final Fantasy IX being but one, and those I would rather pretend not exist altogether, such as the frankly terrible Final Fantasy V. But, as mentioned, there’s the odd, admittedly critically-acclaimed title that has evaded me for one reason or another.
1997’s Final Fantasy Tactics is one such example, and it’s not from a lack of interest, but more a lack of forethought on my part. There’s always been something keeping me at bay, so to have the chance to play a modernised, and thankfully restrained, enhancement brings me more joy than I care to admit. And Ben Starr’s in it too, sweetening the deal further.
No, I’m not obsessed with him. Why would you think that?
Blatant fanboyism aside, I’m no stranger to the much-requested and long-rumoured re-release of such a lauded title. I’m certainly familiar with the fabled difficulty, specifically that it can straight up force an entire restart where units are not levelled up enough for some encounters. But, as equally crucial, I am also aware of the story's near-legendary status, including the many twists and turns such a monumental tale inevitably encompasses, and the challenging yet rewarding gameplay loop that tactical games admirably afford when enacted well.
It’s a feat that still, 28-odd years later, stands the test of time and, I’m pleased to say, lives up to the lofty expectations that had been placed upon it. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time in Ivalice, not my first time, naturally, considering my time in Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Story, et al, and I can only implore those both new and returning to venture forth to experience the reimagination in all its rugged glory.
This is, after all, a re-release, and with such a branding comes certain expectations. Refinement to the gameplay? Check. Voice acting? Gotcha. Modernised graphics? Well… sort of. It’s fair to say that the original’s art style, carefully crafted under the influence of Akihiko Yoshida’s distinctive vision, is truly iconic. Thus, such a character would be needlessly risked were it updated to such a degree that a “modern” remake would usually entail.
Instead, the art style has been subtly updated, made clearer for more capable machines and screens, while still holding the almost toy-like proportions of the characters and dioramas in the utmost regard. What’s more, the environments, in particular, have a nostalgic charm, maintaining the sharp angles and such that games of many a yesteryear utilised throughout, only furthering any and all delight when each new visually distinct locale was introduced. Having only seen copious environments from the originals posted on social media and video content over the last two decades, it was a genuine treat to see them anew now.
The tactical role-playing genre has seen many an improvement in the near-3 decades since Final Fantasy Tactics was first released on the original PlayStation, and I’m grateful to see the vast swathes of upgrades proudly on show here. Most significantly is the UI, featuring clear and astute information at a moment’s glance, such as the potential damage dealt, the percentage-based accuracy of your attack, distance, and much, much more. Gone are the purported days of just… wondering. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was probably my first foray into the tactical role-playing genre, and to have such a level of information readily available back in 2005, it’s one I absolutely took for granted, considering this was once not the norm.
Also not the norm, and as detailed in a recent interview, was a level of standardization with controllers. With controller schemes having been established for many years at this point, it plays intuitively when compared to the original; a welcome, if not likely to be unappreciated by most, addition nonetheless.
Most crucially, then, would be the various difficulty options added to Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles. With three levels of difficulty, Squire, Knight, and Tactician, there’s a fair bit of flexibility in approach and how you want to consume such a dauntingly beautiful and involved story. Squire is the easiest option and is suitable for those who are new to the oft-intimidating genre. Knight offers the most balanced of experiences, and has been “fine-tuned from the original game’s difficulty, [with]it end[ing] up being a little easier than the PS1 version.”. Considering the aforementioned difficulty spikes and potential inaccessibility the originals once infamously afforded, this is sure to be appreciated.
Lastly, the Tactician is for the supposed sadists who do enjoy the difficulty the original provides, and is something I have absolutely not touched myself, considering the challenge even Knight has given me. That’s most likely due to my skills and forethought in tactical games; however, take my failures with a pinch of salt. It is worth noting, having listed the many additions to The Ivalice Chronicles, that the original 1997 adventure is included, so if you wish to experience the classic in all its pure glory, the option is available.
As expected, Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles is perfect to play on the Steam Deck. It’s not something I doubted, since the game originally released for the PlayStation 1, but it’s still nice to confirm. There are two versions included in the game: the new remaster that has updated visuals and voice-overs, and the classic, which sits closer to the original release with some quality-of-life improvements, and both run without a hitch on the Deck.
With there being two different versions of the games included, with some big visual differences between them, there are some changes in performance to note. The remastered version of the game drains at an average 8.5W, while the classic version sticks around 6.5W average. So, playing on the classic version can get an extra hour of battery life, but doesn't have the updated UI, visuals, and voice acting.
The game is also rated Playable for small in-game text, which I believe relates to the classic version of Final Fantasy Tactics. I didn't find much small text in the remastered or classic versions of the game, but I did feel the font of the classic version could make it hard to read some of the UI. From my experience so far, I believe that's the cause of the downgraded badge and not because it is actually too small to read. If you play the remastered version, I doubt you will have problems.
There isn't much more to say about Tactics on the Steam Deck, though; it just works and works well. It feels like a perfect fit, and I couldn't be happier being able to take this on the go and play it wherever I am. This is a portable game I highly recommend investing in.
Other than inverting the camera, changing audio sliders, and changing the voice and text language, we can't do much more in the settings.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, but it does have cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings, but it does seem to have HDR support. Changing the Display Mode to Borderless turns on HDR, while turning it to Fullscreen turns HDR off. A little weird, but I am glad we have an option.
Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles is a rare re-release that understands exactly why the original is revered, and carefully builds upon that legacy without suffocating the original's clear vision. The additions, be it a smoother UI, flexible difficulty modes, or the welcome sheen of voice acting, serve to make the game more approachable while still respecting the uncompromising heart that made it truly iconic. A rugged, respectful restoration ensures one of Square Enix’s most celebrated tactical RPGs can stand proudly in the modern era, and I can only hope that a revival of such a cult classic is a sign of what the future may hold for us. Whether you’re a newcomer like me or a battle-hardened Ivalician veteran, this is the definitive way to experience a classic that has managed to stand the test of time.
It's also essentially flawless on the Steam Deck, feeling perfect to play on the go, whether you choose the remastered or classic version of the game. This is a fantastic purchase, and one we can wholly recommend.
Our content review is based on the PS5 version of this game. Steam Deck Performance and optimization was tested 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.
Endless Legend 2 was provided by Hooded Horse for review. Thank you!
This is an early access title, so our final thoughts on Endless Legend 2 will most likely change as it develops. This review is based on our thoughts of the initial release of the game
There were a couple of games that I was obsessed with when I was younger, and when it came to playing with friends, I loved 4X games. Specifically, I would play scores of Sid Meier's Civilization 5 with them, taking the Shoshone and sprinting to Ancient Ruins to get ahead and demolish them. I fell in love with the genre because of it, and in my quest to find new 4X games to play, I came across my all-time favorite: Endless Legend. It balanced both the 4X mechanics that I fell in love with, but added an RPG flair with customization and intriguing quest lines.
While I loved it, I never found anyone else to play with, so I was stuck playing by myself, and I did so constantly. Now, Endless Legend 2 is almost here, and I wasn't sure where they would go with it. I loved the first one, so I was worried it could fall into the trap that Civilization 6 put me in and make the changes feel less inviting, discouraging me from playing and bringing me right back to the familiar mechanics I had grown accustomed to. However, after playing multiple matches, not only does Endless Legend 2 not fall into that same trap, but I feel the changes push the strategic depth deeper while streamlining some convoluted ideas into accessible ones. In the end, it's very possible that this could end up being my favorite 4X game I have ever played, once it leaves early access.
If you have played Endless Legend 1 or any 4X game prior, the general gameplay loop will immediately feel familiar. The game is based around those 4Xs the genre is known for: Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate. You will take control of one of five factions and work to grow their reach, gather resources, research technology, build out your empire, and conquer the other players on the hexagon-tile map. There's a lot of land around, filled with different strategic and luxury resources, anomalies that give boosts to different types of resources, and houses minor factions that will challenge your rule.
Compared to other 4X games, the map is sectioned out into regions, and only one city can inhabit each one. Your city starts off with six tiles surrounding it, but you can use resources to slowly expand it to cover the entire region. Each tile can have a district built on it, which gives one of the main resources you will need to grow, like Dust (currency), production (to build faster), science (to research faster), and influence (to grow your territory). The main city is where everything will be built, and we can only build one thing in our city at a time, so planning around what you need is going to be critical.
Research will be a big part of what pushes our cities beyond their normal limits. Initially, it will unlock new districts to build and enhancements for already-built facilities, but as time progresses, we can get improvements to increase our gains even more, new ways to engage in diplomacy with other factions, passive buffs and resource gains, actions and specializations for warrior units, and even converters to turn one resource gained into another. Once you've researched a certain amount of technology, you can progress to the next "Era", which unlocks better research tech but costs way more. Luckily, we don't have to research everything to move on, so you can focus on what benefits you the most for the way you decide to play.
Of course, with any 4X games, there will also be armies we have to raise. We can build new units the same way we build districts in cities. Units can be stacked with each other, up to 5-6 at a time, and go off to defeat and destroy minor factions and other players. The minor factions can still spawn in your territory and send units to attack, so it's best to clear them out ASAP. As we play, we will be able to get and buy heroes, which are more powerful units that generally have some special effect, as well as assimilate some of these minor factions to use their units for ourselves. Units do have different jobs, like warriors, archers, or cavalry, so creating an army that balances all to cover your bases will help significantly in fights.
All of these work together to give multiple ways to win the match. Whether you decide to go a peaceful route and gain influence to keep others at bay while building yourself up, or go all out to demolish anyone around that isn't part of your faction, each mechanic gives you the chance to enhance your playstyle. In general, this is how 4X games feel, and I love it. Endless Legend 2 keeps this feeling just as much as the others, but what really makes it stand out are its RPG-esque elements.
In Endless Legend 2, there is one major mechanic that can completely change the game: Tidefall. The previous game had snowy seasons that could change the landscape a bit, but Tidefall completely brings in new land altogether. After each Tidefall season, there will be new land with new factions, resources, and locations to find. This can also link to other already-established plots of land, creating new shortcuts or ways to get around. So, if you are looking to attack a specific faction, but there's no way to get to it, it's possible a back door pathway could magically appear.
Units can level up from battles, and while regular units can specialize and become more powerful with upgraded abilities, heroes go a step further. Heroes have a full skill tree and equipment system, so you can mold them into the leader you need them to be. This can be extremely helpful for specialized armies led by a hero who complements their skillset. This was a feature present in the previous game, but instead of researching new resources to gain access to being able to create these new weapons, we will pick them up as we defeat enemy armies.
These heroes also give bonuses to your empire as a whole through the new Council system. More slots will open up as you research new technologies, and they can range from giving more dust and food to making armies stronger. It can be very helpful, and with the ability to purchase and get new heroes from playing, we can play to our strengths.
The way we win in this game is a little more straightforward as well. As you progress, you will be faced with a choice on how you want to win, whether it's dominating in resources and wealth, pacifying all your enemies, or expanding your overwhelming influence. The goals are shown and directly laid out, and it makes figuring out the best way to win easier. I went for the overwhelming wealth and aimed to have 20 of each strategic resource and hold them for 5 turns. I had a ton of land and currency already, so expanding to get the new resources was quite easy.
It's also great to take advantage of the quest system to get more resources more easily. A lot of the quests will lead you to investigate places or fight specific enemies, and there is a story that comes along with it. However, the Deeds are my favorite. These are game-wide quests where, if you complete them, you get a major bonus that nobody else can claim. The rewards are fantastic, and can range from extra movement for all your units and an extra city cap, to an extra assimilation slot and permanent population bonuses. I loved rushing to get to these, and the bonuses can be game-changing.
There really are so many mechanics that can influence how you play, and I love it. This really feels like an evolution of Endless Legend, and while I missed creating custom units, I like the direction they are heading. With this being early access, we are missing some key features that I would like to see, like faction customization and multiplayer, but I know those are on the way. Still, for what is being offered, I had a great time.
Going into Endless Legend 2 on the Steam Deck, I was worried. Not only are 4X games generally not optimized for controllers, but this is an early access game that still needs to go through optimization in general. However, I was unaware that Amplitude was not only taking care of controller support, but was also seemingly getting it ready for playing on the Deck.
As soon as I booted up the game, I was shown gamepad prompts, which confirmed to me that the game does indeed have controller support, and it's pretty solid so far. There's a radial menu that has some of the more important menus, like the Heroes Circle and Technology, and almost everything was accessible with a combination of the Dpad and Joystick. I was pretty shocked, and while it took me a moment to figure out how to get to everything, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was.
However, performance is another story. As soon as the game starts, we are hit with a 25 FPS lock, and that's before we even start building our empire and expanding our map visibility. I also loading into my game where my empire has expanded monumentally at turn 144, and it drops even further down. Zoomed in got around 20 FPS, while zoomed out sat at 16 - 18 FPS. It's a little bit too brutal, and makes playing on the Deck much harder.
When I went to play around with the video settings, I realized that there wasn't any there. So, I used the SteamDeck=0 %command% launch option to see if maybe they were hidden on the Steam Deck-specific build, and it popped up. From this, I was able to gather that Amplitude is definitely making a specific build for the Steam Deck, and they locked off video options, which is something I don't necessarily enjoy. But, with the lowest quality settings on the non-Deck build, it ran much better, getting 30 FPS zoomed out on the turn 144 save. However, gamepad support isn't implemented here, so you will have to use keyboard and mouse.
Selecting which one I preferred was tough. The gamepad support is super nice, but the extra performance was great. However, I personally went with the gamepad support. The performance may not be as good, but the visuals are nicer, and it was just more comfortable to play and use overall. I also felt the text size and UI were nicely attuned to the Deck's screen, and I couldn't move past it.
The game does have some specific accessibility settings where you can toggle subtitles, change their color, change the font size, left-click to order movement, and modify the game's overall color scheme. There are also some gameplay settings to toggle tutorials, battle focus, maximum number of auto-saves and frequency, panning speed, volume bars, and change some UI features like the language and size.
The game does support 16:10 resolutions, as well as cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings.
Endless Legend 2 became exactly what I was hoping for in a sequel to one of my favorite 4X games of all time. It took the best parts of the previous game, the RPG-esque quests and equipment, while streamlining the 4X features overall. The inclusion of Tidefall events makes finding new lands exciting and opens up new avenues with a more natural progression of resources, while the changes to heroes, The Council, and cities make for an exciting game. It is missing some key features like Faction Customization and multiplayer, but with this being an early access game, I will hold off on my disappointment as they are working on it.
I am shocked to see how well Endless Legend 2 looks and feels on the Steam Deck, and it seems Amplitude is working on making it playable on the go. I am pleased to see it. It does need some work on performance, and I wish the video settings were available to play around with, but I am overjoyed by the solid controller support that they have. I would maybe wait to get this on the Deck for now, but if you have no other way to play, it's still going to be decently enjoyable.
No matter what though, if you enjoy 4X games and RPGs, this is a fantastic experience. It has quickly moved its way up and become one of my favorites, and I can't wait to see how it will develop through early access.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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