Final Fantasy 16 Should Not Be Steam Deck Verified

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Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of games that didn’t seem like they would work on the steam deck receive a badge from Valve saying that they actually do work. It’s been quite surprising, since a lot of these games still have some sort of issue or just aren’t the greatest experience. Immediately after I noticed Returnal, which got the Playable badge, I saw that Final Fantasy 16 actually got the Verified badge. After seeing how the game initially ran, it was extremely hard to believe that somehow it was a great experience on the Deck.

So, I had to take it upon myself to actually test the game and see if it really deserves that green checkmark. Sadly, there seems to be another case of an experience, not worth playing on the Deck, and it’s far from something I would consider “great.”

Of the few positives, most battles were generally sticking to 30 FPS. It did hit the battery a bit hard, but it was able to stick to 30 throughout every attack I was making, and when I was fighting against five or so enemies at a time. And despite the visual compromises, it didn’t look too bad in the heat of battle. I would consider it quite enjoyable, and I had a good time.

However, that good time ended as soon as we left combat. Running around across cities and landscapes would drop the framerate below 30, going as low as 18 FPS. It hits the CPU usage hard, which can completely ruin the experience. The amount of slowdowns and stuttering when I was just running through the forest made me start to dread running around at all.

And then we have cutscenes, which are even worse. Not only can the framerate go down even further, sometimes to 13 FPS, but the visual downgrades are on clear display. Faces are blurry and lack detail, environments are muddy, and any sort of joy that can be found from watching the story unfold is almost completely gone.

Because of those two elements, there’s no way I would say that Final Fantasy 16 is a Verified game. It’s true that battles are playable, but as soon as we leave them, the performance can drop greatly. The compromises to visuals are really felt in cutscenes, and I was just left, wishing for a better experience. It’s a shame, but at the end of the day, there’s no way I would recommend playing this on the Deck.

Final Fantasy 16 can be purchased for $49.99 on Steam.

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