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This review is based ONLY on performance of the game on the STEAM DECK.




Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a story-driven adventure game that takes you on a mystical journey to find the sacred Mountain Shrine. Along the way, you will discover the Rot, and with their help, you are tasked to help free the spirits trapped in a mysterious forgotten village. As Kena, use your powers from the spirit realm to untangle this curse and restore the world to its once-majestic state with so many secrets to uncover and hats to collect for your Rot friends.

As you collect more and more Rot, you will unlock powerful new abilities to help use them to not only cleanse the corruption, but fight against your foes. Combined with your own skills, you will engage in fast-paced combat to challenge you to strategize when to use the Rot or not. And with the anniversary update content, you can use New Game+, Spirit Guide Trials, new outfits, charmstones, and more! With so much to offer, the only question that remains is...how does it run on the Steam Deck?





Kena is definitely not a game to run at max settings. Everything uncapped, the game can easily drain up to 25W and temps above 80c with a framerate that sticks below 20 FPS. This is definitely not the way to play, but we can absolutely make it better!

With enough tweaking, Kena can run well, but it does have some compromises to do it. Regardless of the settings I chose, there were 2 things specifically that were apparent. The first was framerate drops. Even on the lowest settings with no TDP limit at 30 FPS locked, the game still stuttered when running into new places. While this generally didn't happen during battles or platforming, it was still pretty apparent in the village.

The next is ghosting, and man is it visible. There is no FSR 2.1 integrated in the game as of this writing, but it does have dynamic resolution scaling. Using this is a necessity to play the game at a stable framerate without draining your battery in an hour and a half. But regardless, the ghosting was still there. I was able to look past it when I was playing, but it was still noticeable enough where I feel most will see it.

With all of this, I was able to create 3 different builds with a focus on framerate, visual quality, and battery. Personally, I felt the 40 FPS build was fantastic and loved playing it as it felt quite smooth. If FSR 2.1 gets integrated, it will help a ton! Though I would say, even with these pitfalls, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a worthwhile endeavor on the Deck!

[h1]SDHQ STEAM DECK PERFORMANCE REVIEW:[/h1] [table] [tr] [th] Follow our [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42495043/]curator[/url] page for more Steam Deck reviews [/th][/tr][/table] [table] [tr] [th] Follow our[url=https://twitter.com/SteamDeckHQ]Twitter[/url] for Steam Deck takes and article/review updates [/th][/tr][/table] Follow our Twitter for Steam Deck takes and article/review updates [i]This review is based ONLY on performance of the game on the STEAM DECK.[/i] [h1]The Game Itself:[/h1] Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a story-driven adventure game that takes you on a mystical journey to find the sacred Mountain Shrine. Along the way, you will discover the Rot, and with their help, you are tasked to help free the spirits trapped in a mysterious forgotten village. As Kena, use your powers from the spirit realm to untangle this curse and restore the world to its once-majestic state with so many secrets to uncover and hats to collect for your Rot friends. As you collect more and more Rot, you will unlock powerful new abilities to help use them to not only cleanse the corruption, but fight against your foes. Combined with your own skills, you will engage in fast-paced combat to challenge you to strategize when to use the Rot or not. And with the anniversary update content, you can use New Game+, Spirit Guide Trials, new outfits, charmstones, and more! With so much to offer, the only question that remains is...how does it run on the Steam Deck? [h1]Steam Deck Performance:[/h1] Kena is definitely not a game to run at max settings. Everything uncapped, the game can easily drain up to 25W and temps above 80c with a framerate that sticks below 20 FPS. This is definitely not the way to play, but we can absolutely make it better! With enough tweaking, Kena can run well, but it does have some compromises to do it. Regardless of the settings I chose, there were 2 things specifically that were apparent. The first was framerate drops. Even on the lowest settings with no TDP limit at 30 FPS locked, the game still stuttered when running into new places. While this generally didn't happen during battles or platforming, it was still pretty apparent in the village. The next is ghosting, and man is it visible. There is no FSR 2.1 integrated in the game as of this writing, but it does have dynamic resolution scaling. Using this is a necessity to play the game at a stable framerate without draining your battery in an hour and a half. But regardless, the ghosting was still there. I was able to look past it when I was playing, but it was still noticeable enough where I feel most will see it. With all of this, I was able to create 3 different builds with a focus on framerate, visual quality, and battery. Personally, I felt the 40 FPS build was fantastic and loved playing it as it felt quite smooth. If FSR 2.1 gets integrated, it will help a ton! Though I would say, even with these pitfalls, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a worthwhile endeavor on the Deck! [table] [tr] [th] [url=https://steamdeckhq.com/]SDHQ[/url] is a website made for curating Steam Deck news, guides, and providing optimization/builds for games on the Deck. [/th][/tr][/table]