Edens Zero Is Just Playable On The Steam Deck - Preview

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Edens Zero was provided by Konami for review. Thank you!

I love playing JRPGs, especially ones based on anime. Not only do I get to play out some of my favorite scenes from anime I know and love, like Naruto, but I also get introduced to awesome new series that I wouldn't have checked out before, like Demon Slayer and Fairy Tail. Edens Zero is another one of those games I have been really looking forward to. It looks like it has an extremely interesting story, and after playing it for a bit, I am only more interested in what is coming next.

While I haven't had enough time with the game to review it fully, I have played enough to see if it will be a solid experience on the Steam Deck. It feels like a game that should be fun to play on the go, so I wanted to make sure it would work. Luckily, for the most part, it does, but there are some worrying signs that could make a tougher recommendation.

This is a preview and not our full review of the game. Performance may be better or worse further into the game, and this article is meant for our impressions on the early sections.

I have played through all of Chapter 1 and part of Chapter 2, and overall, I would consider it a playable experience so far. The game's story mode seems to take place in more condensed areas of the map, and it performs decently. The forest in Granbell, when the game starts, kills performance, but other than that, it sticks to the 45 FPS limit I put with Shadows on Medium and everything else on high. Fights usually stuck to this framerate as well, though there were some moments, like with tons of enemies or large special attacks, but it was all very playable.

Other than the story mode, you can explore different worlds freely and fly/drive around as you please. While this is awesome, especially for flying around, it can kill performance. It seems that the area is just too big and there's too much to render, which causes massive drops. Even on the lowest settings, these drops are unavoidable. It is a little weird to me, since the game isn't super realistic looking, but if you are willing to sacrifice resolution, I could see it hitting 30 FPS.

Control-wise, the game feels right at home with a gamepad. However, some of the controls are a bit weird, like using LB to lock on to enemies. The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, but it does have cloud saves, so going from PC to Steam Deck should be quite easy to do.

Overall, it's a mixed bag for Edens Zero. The story mode has been performing decently and sticking to 45 FPS with mostly maxed out settings, while the exploration mode is dropping performance a lot. I would say a blanket 30 FPS cap with medium/low settings should be very doable, but pushing to higher framerates and graphical quality is going to be tougher to do. Still, I would consider it playable, and that's what matters!

Edens Zero can be pre-purchased for $59.99 ahead of its July 15th release date.

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