Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream Test Shows Some Promise on Steam Deck

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I’ve always been fascinated with the entire concept behind Sword Art Online, especially with the games. I love the idea behind it, and I’m a sucker for action-adventure games with real-time combat and MMO-like progression systems. I loved the other games that have been released in the series, and that’s why I just had to take part in the network test for the new title: Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream.

I am really enjoying the game and see a lot of potential. The characters each felt quite unique to play, and the way the game integrates online co-op to complete missions and use combo actions with up to 20 people is really cool. It still has the action combat I would expect, as well as some ranged characters that are interesting in their own right, but I was having a great time with the flashy combat and MMO-style loot and equipment, too.

There’s a lot more I really liked about it, like the mod system and how there are two different types of levels to gain experience for, but after all of my playing, I was left optimistic for how it will run on the Steam Deck on the full release.

Since this is a network/beta test for the game, there are more than likely some optimizations that have not yet been implemented in the game. There’s even a screen at the beginning that states that there may be bugs in this beta, so the experience is more than likely not a fully accurate representation of what it will be capable of.

For the most part, I was able to get above 30 FPS, and it was pretty great. When playing the tutorial solo, I was sticking nicely above 40 FPS, with some spots getting into 50. I enhanced this by bringing the resolution render down to 90, which kept the game looking nice and kept me closer to 60. I could see solo play sticking to a cool 45 FPS or maybe even 50 with more compromises. There are some dips here and there when doing some special or ultimate moves, but overall, I’m happy with it.

Multiplayer, on the other hand, is a bit harder to run. Going solo had two other AI characters playing with me, but online, you have 19 others with you. This was a problem at the end, where you all worked together to fight a big boss. It held out and never got to an unplayable state, but I could definitely feel the game chugging to stick to 30 and above. There are some areas as well where the game could chug when looking in certain directions, like in the forest area, but it still stuck above 30.

Because of the art style and bolded outlines of characters and surroundings, I had this feeling that using an upscaler like FSR wouldn't affect the visuals as much. And yes, this is true, especially when you look at the game on the smaller screen. By forcing the game to run at 800x500 with SteamOS FSR, we can stick way above 30 FPS with almost 0 drops while also sticking to 50 FPS in Solo and 40 FPS in multiplayer. There is a trade-off with harder to read menus and some pixelated visuals, but it does work and make the game more stable with better performance.

Would I recommend playing like this? No. But it's an option for a more stable experience that is nice to keep in mind.

I have a feeling the full game will be better than the beta, especially with the CPU and GPU requirements being on the lower end and easy for the Deck to handle. But so far, I am quite pleased with what I am seeing. The game sticking to 30 FPS with higher performance in solo play makes me optimistic for what the rest of the game will hold. If this trend continues, the game will be a great experience on the Steam Deck.

Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream can be pre-purchased for $59.99 ahead of its October 3rd release date.

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