HomeHardwareFeaturesLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth deserves its Steam Deck Verified badge, even with steep settings cutsDeck performance, FSR, and battery life tested
Deck performance, FSR, and battery life tested
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
For such a ma-bloody-hoosiveRPG, it turns outLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealthcan fit rather snugly in the diminutiveSteam Deck. Developers RGG Studiorevealed, a full two weeks before launch, that Valve had awarded it covetedVerified status– a mark of honour for games that run, control, and generally operate well on the handheld.
What that golden sticker doesn’t explain is that to keep above a suitable 30fps, Infinite Wealth does demand that you swing the stolen bicycle of quality reductions directly into the soft skull of its graphical settings. It’s perfectly doable, mind, so if LADding around Hawaii sounds like as much fun to you as Ed’sreviewmakes it seem, read on to find out how Infinite Wealth gets on with the Steam Deck andSteam Deck OLED.
Image credit:Rock Paper ShotgunSteam Deck Academybrings together all our guides and explainers on getting the most out of your Steam Deck, no student loans or sweaty dormitories required.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
Steam Deck Academybrings together all our guides and explainers on getting the most out of your Steam Deck, no student loans or sweaty dormitories required.
First up, and thrilling as ever, is the matter of storage. Infinite Wealth is indeed a heavyset game, wanting 82GB of free space for the download and taking up over 78GB once fully installed. If you’ve got a 64GB Steam Deck, then, you’ll need a sufficiently sizedmicroSD cardto step in and make room.
At least, you can for the first couple of chapters. Infinite Wealth’s single biggest technical problem is a lack of consistency in performance, so once your adventure hits the sands of Honolulu, those same Medium settings will have you dipping below 30fps more or less every time you hit the open world. Most interiors run better but really, the Hawawii-set portions demand a less strenuous set of visual options. And not just a handful of select reductions, like my desktop testing suggests is best for proper PCs – for the Steam Deck, more comprehensive cutting is necessary.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
After much pottering around the map’s more demanding areas, I reckon your best bet is toenable the Lowest preset, with the sole subsequent customisation ofchanging FSR 1.0 Performance to FSR 2 Quality. Yes, this approach throws out flourishes like SSAO and depth of field effects, but it’s also not just about stooping as low as we can go. That switch from FSR 1.0 to FSR 2 makes for a major overall fidelity improvement (versus using the Lowest preset as-is), and the latter is still providing a speed boost that’s essential in staying above that 30fps mark.
And, to stress, that’s 30fps in the absolute worst case. Much more often, these settings will be netting you between 40fps and 50fps in Honolulu, and about 60fps or more back in the tighter, less demanding Yokohama segments. For a modern, fully 3D game on handheld tech, it’s not unacceptably uggo either. The turn-based battles remain flashy lightshows of fantasy particle effects, and honestly, the Steam Deck’s screen is neither big enough or high-res enough to really notice the reductions in texture filtering or geometry quality. There’s still the occasional microstutter in busy locales (not present on desktop, I notice), but broadly, it’s fine. Enough to walk the Verified walk, in any case.
Whilebattery lifeisn’t a key consideration in Valve’s verification process, Infinite Wealth is at least par for the big-budget course. With brightness and speakers both at 50%, it drained an original, 512GB Steam Deck from full to empty in 1h 26m, which is roughly on average for a contemporary open-worlder. Unsurprisingly, it got considerably more time out of the Steam Deck OLED, with 2h 08m on the same hardware settings.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
Nobody could claim Infinite Wealth sits among the verybestSteam Deck games. Besides needing mostly minimal settings, it occasionally bodges the 16:10 display with horizontal bars accompanying cutscenes and menus. Not ideal. Nevertheless, it can ultimately perform on a level that feels one or two steps above mere adequacy, and it does so while avoiding any issues with dodgy controls or illegible text.
That’s why it holds Verified status, not merely Playable, and it’s why those graphics cuts are a price worth paying. Want to keep Ichiban and pals in your backpack? Go for it.
