EDF World Brothers 2 (which is a spin off of the main EDF series) just came out and has fully optional Epic games integration. It doesn't even download the Epic account software unless you opt into using it.
I'm glad to see they've gone back and changed the previously released game to make it optional too.
The gameplay of the EDF games is pretty fun honestly, it does feel different from many modern games, but it's honestly kinda refreshing.
The biggest changes I know of are things like it using ZRAM instead of swap for dealing with high memory conditions (games like GoW will no longer crash the deck due to a memory leak using all the system's ram/vram/swap), and a revamped update system that makes system updates faster and more reliable. There are several major improvements that happened on the steam client side of things (like toggling what bluetooth LE devices wake the deck, quick BT connect menu in the QAM menu, etc) that may or may not have made it to stable already. There are a lot of bug fixes of course, many things complained about in the recent bug discussion thread have been fixed in 3.6.
Overall there's a lot less major features that come to mind than with the 3.5 update, but I'm also probably skipping over a lot of stuff.
Right, but in my case I'm not actually a customer of the local electric company that offers fiber. However pressure from them got my telco company (the only choice I have besides satellite) to offer me fiber, raising my max speed from 3Mb/s to 1000Mb/s.
Do you live off grid?
Definitely seeing that where I live. One of the local electric companies started offering gigabit fiber for $75, where most people were paying a lot more than that for DSL or low quality satellite (which were the only choices before). It's been a huge improvement for those people, and it's forced some of the long stagnant Telco companies to actually compete and start rolling out fiber of their own.
The game mechanics remind me of Hoplite on mobile.
That's pretty high praise, I'll check it out.
The GoW memory leak shouldn't be an issue once SteamOS 3.6 hits stable, it uses ZRAM which will keep the game from crashing the Deck.
Yeah, I did hacking + smart weapons for my CP2077 playthrough so that almost no aiming is required. I imagine melee builds play fine as well.
I'm playing EDF: World Brothers 2 with a friend, and also bouncing between Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, and Monster Hunter Rise.
I'm looking forward to getting back into Shadows of Doubt. It just came out of early access, and recent updates included a ton of steam deck optimizations and major improvements to controller support. There are some great user control profiles already available, but I look forward to being able to play it docked as well with a standard controller.
Here's a link to the game's store page
And here's a link to their X post with the animated Steam Deck art.
As an adult gamer, I have a lot less time for games. Single player games are nice because I can make meaningful progress on a storyline/etc, and even do things like finish a game and move onto the next one.
Playing online pvp games can be fun, but it usually takes a huge time investment to be good. And in the time I have to play, there's rarely a feeling of progress. Spending 1-2 hours on a single player game and I have progressed in a distinctive way. Spend that same time in League or some other multiplayer game and I have nothing to show for it except a few ranking points.