Prince of Persia The Lost Crown Is Amazing On Steam Deck, But It Has One Big Issue

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown was provided by Ubisoft for review. Thank you!

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Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, once a Ubisoft Connect exclusive, has finally come to Steam, and it feels great to see it here! The game is amazing and reinvigorated my excitement for the Prince of Persia franchise. Before it was released, the official Prince of Persia account showed off a small video showing the game running on the Steam Deck, claiming it could handle Ultra settings and hit 90 FPS. I was a bit skeptical due to such a beautiful game needing a lot of optimization to hit that, so I was excited to get in and try it myself. So far, my mind has been blown.

The account did NOT exaggerate. Prince of Persia The Lost Crown is playable on Ultra settings and still hits 90 FPS, while staying under 18W of battery drain. Seeing this for myself was incredible, and while there were little stutters or dips here and there, it stuck to 90 FPS in every area that mattered and during combat. The game looks beautiful and pops on the OLED screen. I would consider this an essential Steam Deck game to get. However, the game has one major issue that I haven't seen much talk about: RAM usage.

When I was playing through the game at Ultra Settings, I was so stunned by the world and how smooth it felt that I stopped paying attention to the performance and just got into the game. This came to an abrupt end, however, when my game slowed to a crawl and ultimately crashed. I had my performance overlay on at the time, so I looked into it, and the RAM usage had spiked. I was getting over 14GB of system RAM with 6.5GB of VRAM, which is way more than the Deck can handle. Without a doubt, this was the cause of my crash.

I also tested this on my second OLED Steam Deck to see if the same issue occurred. While it didn't crash in the same spot, the RAM shot up to the same levels. I would consider this issue to be possible even if it didn't happen again.

So far, it seems that going to High Settings instead of Ultra fixes this, and I have yet to experience any crashes, but I will be testing thoroughly for our review to say definitively what settings you should play at. overall, the game is fantastic. The team has optimized the hell out of the game, and outside of the RAM issue, the experience is nearly flawless. I would still consider getting the game for your Steam Deck a safe bet. So, if you are on the fence, I say go for it.

I also didn't have a problem with the Ubisoft Connect DRM. If you have logged into Ubisoft Connect before for a different game, it should be fairly straightforward here. Controls worked well, the environments looked stunning, and I was sold on it.

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown can be purchased on Steam now for $23.99 and is on a 40% off sale until August 22nd to celebrate the release. It is currently rated Steam Deck Playable due to the first time launcher setup and the game not quitting completely unless you force it through Steam's menus. We are playing through the game for a full review, so check back soon for our thoughts on the entire game and optimized settings!

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