Warriors: Abyss Is a Joy To Play on the Steam Deck - First Impressions

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Warriors: Abyss was provided by Koei Tecmo for review. Thank you!

Of all the games I would be released out of nowhere, I never thought it could be the melding of two of my favorite types of games in existence. Warriors: Abyss takes Koei Tecmo's Warriors 1 vs. 1000 gameplay and places it in a Roguelike shell, and my time with it so far has been amazing. I have been having a blast learning the mechanics, and it may have one of the more intricate and satisfying roguelike mechanics I have experienced in other similar games.

While I am working on a review as we speak, I wanted to write a bit about my experiences on the Steam Deck and whether this is a worthwhile purchase for portable gaming. I will have full thoughts and optimized settings in my review, but for now, let's go over how it is running on the Steam Deck.

Warriors: Abyss - Steam Deck Performance So Far

I have played multiple different runs in Warriors: Abyss and even gotten to the final area with a very lucky run playing as Guan Yu, and throughout, it was able to stick to 45 FPS. I kept it at the default preset, designed for the Steam Deck, but I had to change the in-game FPS cap, which defaults to 30. For the most part, the battery drain capped at around 15W and averaged around 13W, but towards the later areas, we will have many more enemies on screen, and the drain will skyrocket up to 21W. Still, I didn't see any noticeable dips from 45 FPS.

I didn't notice any text that was too small, and with the way the game utilizes colors for some of its attacks, it feels perfect for the OLED screen. It's hard to play the game this way and go back to playing on a desktop. It really does feel like the perfect fit for portable gaming, and even better on an OLED screen that makes the colors pop.

I did try to play at 60 FPS, but there were some noticeable drops on the default settings. It may be possible to achieve this with lower quality settings or a forced lower resolution, but it will severely impact visuals. I think a compromise of 45 FPS with default settings is good, though I can see some improvements to visuals if you want to cap at 30 FPS. Still, the smoothness makes the lower-quality settings feel more justified.

In the end, Warriors: Abyss feels wonderful on the Steam Deck. Will it get that 60 FPS without some big compromises? Probably not, but it feels and looks great at 45 FPS with the default settings. I will be seeing if I can make it any better for the recommended settings that will be posted with my review. However, if you are looking for a general overview of whether it is worth getting on your Steam Deck, I can happily say that this will be a wonderful title to add to your on-the-go library.

Warriors: Abyss is available now on Steam for $24.99 and is rated Steam Deck Verified. For the price, I would consider this a solid deal for a game I can't get enough of.

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