Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Is Quite Playable On Steam Deck - First Look

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Ninja Gaiden 2 Black was provided by Koei Tecmo. Thank you!

Yesterday was a very busy day. Not only did we have the launch of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on PC, but we also had a surprise drop for a remaster of a title from which lots of people have been asking for a return. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is awesome, and this remaster is truly a bloody spectacle worth experiencing. With stealth released, we decided to check it out on the Steam Deck to see just how playable it will be on the go, and so far, I am impressed.

Before I go into my findings so far, these are impressions based on a little over an hour of gameplay. We haven't had enough time to fully test and review the game yet, but I wanted to clarify whether it will be playable.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Steam Deck Performance So Far

I always get a little nervous when testing games made with Unreal Engine 5. Many developers, like Nanite and Lumen, use technology that can kill performance on the Steam Deck. However, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is very playable on the Steam Deck, and I think this is going to be a great game to play on the go.

Without changing settings, I could play almost the entire first level without any dips below 30 FPS. The game defaults to the lowest settings, with TSR upscaling at 60% of the 3D-rendered resolution. The game looks decent like this, though it does have a high battery drain at 23W - 24W and will need all the power it can get. It looks fantastic most of the time, but I did want to explore the settings to see if there were ways I could make it better.

While all the settings were at their lowest, I wanted to focus on the upscalers. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black has FSR 3 and XeSS, which affect the game differently. I noticed that FSR and TSR both have some blurriness up close and hurt performance a little more than XeSS, which has a little extra blurriness far away. FSR and TSR are also slightly too sharp, especially on foliage. XeSS feels like a nice balance, and while it can be a little blurry when in combat, the extra FPS is nice.

I decided to go with XeSS on Performance mode because it wasn't a huge downgrade from Balanced but still gets a solid framerate boost. However, combat will still drop into the mid-30s, so for the most stability, I recommend playing at 30 FPS, regardless. It drops far enough that I think 40 FPS isn't possible without some heavy visual compromises that aren't worthwhile, but I need to play more to evaluate fully.

It does seem like it may be possible to increase some of the quality settings and still stick to 30, but more testing is needed. I would also keep the TDP unlocked for right now if you want better visual quality, though if you are willing to set a 30 FPS limit and go down to Ultra Performance with XeSS, I believe a TDP limit is possible to conserve battery.

And while past Ninja Gaiden games have been tied to framerate, there is no gameplay logic slowdown when playing at lower framerates. There is also an in-game framerate limiter you can use instead of SteamOS's quick-access menu.

I did notice some minor pop-ins and the shadows looked very blocky, but nothing appeared that was too jarring. The combat was brutal, and my attention was primarily on that, with nothing else distracting me from the fast-paced slicing. I can also confirm that HDR is supported on the Steam Deck OLED, and it looks wonderful.

So, Should You Get Ninja Gaiden 2 Black On Steam Deck?

From what I have played, I can happily say yes. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black feels better at higher framerates, but I will take what I can get for some compromises to play on the go. So far, 30 FPS is the most stable framerate, with XeSS at Performance and everything else at low. There were some minor pop-ins, but no major issues stood out and distracted me from the intensity of the gameplay.

There is still more to test, and we will have full recommended settings in our review (which is coming within the next week or two), but if I had to say whether it is worth playing on the Steam Deck based on my limited time with it, I would say yes.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is available on Steam for $49.99.

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