Agent 64: Spies Never Die Is Another Steam Deck Gem

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Even though modern shooters have progressed and grown, there’s still a lot of charm in the way the original shooters felt. For those of us who miss the Nintendo 64 shooters, like Goldeneye, Agent 64: Spies Never Die has us covered. The game, which has just released today, is heavily inspired by the retro Nintendo 64 era, where we will go through a campaign alone, or in co-op, and fight others online. For what it’s worth, it stays very faithful to the feel of those original games, and I’m happy to say that it’s fully compatible with the Steam Deck.

Seeing how the game looks, I wasn’t worried about. It performing well on the steam deck. Still, I have been burned by other games that I felt should run better, so I had to test it for myself to see the performance firsthand. Thankfully, this is not like those other games, and it performs perfectly.

In the campaign, I was able to easily hit 60 FPS while maintaining a 12W battery drain. The game was running as smooth as butter, while still maintaining over 3.5 hours to its charge. It plays and feels fantastic, and I have no complaints about how it’s performing on the go. Coupled with the gorgeous OLED screen, this feels like the best way to enjoy it.

I was also a little worried about the online multiplayer, since it mentions that the game uses kernel-level Easy Anti-Cheat. Kernel-level anti-cheat usually does not work on the steam deck or other Linux device devices, since it requires going into the kernel of the Windows OS. I was worried that this would mean multiplayer would not work. However, I was wrong here.

I can happily confirm that the online works perfectly, and I was able to play multiple matches and get my ass kicked by random people. It was exactly the experience I was hoping to have, and it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be any compromise necessary to actually play this game in all of its glory.

Ultimately, Agent 64 seems to be a great call back to the classic games, and it’s going to be a great one to experience on the go. It runs like a charm, all of its features work perfectly on the deck, and it doesn’t drain too much battery so we can get a decent charge playing it. Based on what I’ve experienced so far, this is what I can wholeheartedly recommend playing on the Deck.

Agent 64: Spies Never Die is on sale for $19.25 until August 25th.

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