TRON: Catalyst Preview - TRON Fans Should be Excited for this Steam Deck-Friendly Adventure

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There's less than 2 months until TRON: Catalyst lands on Steam on June 17th, and I was fortunate enough to be able to get my hands on a preview of the game. So, how does this top-down action-adventure game take on the world of TRON?

TRON: Catalyst - Gameplay Impressions

The preview I got to play wasn't too long, so I can't really comment much on the game's progression and storyline, but I can comment on how the game plays, particularly the combat, as well as the feel of the game.

TRON: Catalyst is played from a top-down perspective and utilizes a unique mechanic for its gameplay, that of being able to loop back time and replay through the same situations, but forearmed with the knowledge you'll need beforehand in future attempts. The game is separated into various loops you'll play through, and it's your job to figure out what you'll need to do to progress through these loops.

You might find the game a little hand-holdy in this regard, while it sounds like a fun mechanic to "figure out" what you have to do in each loop to proceed, the game does actually tell you everything you must do in detail, so there is no puzzle solving or brainwork required here, which is kind of disappointing.

A couple of tweaks here and there before the full release would be nice. I'd like to see if there could be a less hand-holdy system in place for objectives. The game tells you to "find a character" or "find a way inside", but then drops an objective marker exactly where you need to look, so there really is no "finding" to do.

I understand that it limits frustration, but I would like to have a reason to open my map from time to time and actually try to work out a route or plan between loops what I need to do, rather than the game explicitly telling me whenever I should restart the loop and where to go.

The combat in the game feels OK. It has some fighting mechanics in such as parrying, dodging, melee attacks, as well as the ability to throw your disc, as you would expect from a TRON game. Largely, you can get away with mashing the melee button to defeat enemies, occasionally dodging out of the way of attacks. Parrying, I found to be pretty hard to pull off, as it isn't always apparent when an enemy is about to strike.

All that being said, the game does hold up reasonably well, and it's nice to finally get a chance to look back into the TRON universe. My previous experience was TRON 2.0 Killer App on the original Xbox, and there doesn't seem to have really been a game that has explored the universe of TRON. TRON: Catalyst, with its semi-open world design and characters to meet, looks like one of the best looks into the world of TRON we've had yet.

TRON: Catalyst - Steam Deck Performance Tested

TRON: Catalyst does (technically) have support for 1280x800 resolution as well as good controller support. The game does not, however, have any graphical settings to adjust, aside from "Max Framerate".

There are issues with running the game at 1280x800, though. The game will play as though it is in a 16:10 aspect ratio, but the screen actually visible is still 16:9. This means the top and bottom of your game will be cut off. Hopefully, this is just a small bug that can be fixed for the full release, but it did mean I had to play at 1280x720 during my test.

Despite not having any graphical settings, the game runs great on the Steam Deck, with a solid 60 FPS possible without pushing the battery too hard. Some areas can run at 90 FPS on an OLED Steam Deck, but I saw dips into the 70s quite often in busier areas, so I just locked mine to 60 throughout.

Final Thoughts

TRON: Catalyst is definitely a game that TRON fans should take note of. It seems to have a fairly competent combat system in place, and it does have an interesting premise. Getting to see the world of TRON in the form of... an actual world, was a first for me, and that was pretty cool.

There are a couple of areas that I hope the game improves before release, particularly the 16:10 aspect ratio support, but I'd also love to see if it's possible to work in an alternative way of displaying objectives that finds a happy medium between having some figuring out to do, but not frustrating the player.

Steam Deck performance (aside from the 16:10 issues) is pretty much flawless, and the game plays just as well on a Steam Deck as it would on any other device.

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