The Earth Defense Force in the West has had such inconsistent releases when it comes to timing over the years. I got into the series through the PS Vita version of Earth Defense Force 2, but have since played every game available on PS4, PC, Switch, PS Vita, and Xbox 360 through backward compatibility. I consider this one of my favorite franchises out there, and I always enjoy playing EDF. The wait for Earth Defense Force 6 has been too long, but it is finally here in the West on PS5, PS4, and PC (Steam and Epic). Having now played it on Steam Deck and PS5, it feels great to have such a content-packed and excellent EDF game, but there are a few things you need to keep in mind about it. I’m going to cover them and focus on the PC version played on Steam Deck for this Earth Defense Force 6 review. It is worth noting that as of this writing, Earth Defense Force 6 has not been tested by Valve on Steam Deck so it isn’t marked as Playable or Verified yet.

I consider every Earth Defense Force game as basically standalone, but Earth Defense Force 6 is a proper sequel to Earth Defense Force 5. Despite that, I have no qualms in telling anyone to start with this one if they are new to the series. Are all your friends getting Earth Defense Force 6 and you don’t want to miss out? Grab Earth Defense Force 6, but I hope you go back and also play Earth Defense Force 4.1 and Earth Defense Force 5 when you can. With that out of the way, Earth Defense Force 6 builds on Earth Defense Force 5’s base in just about every way. There are enhancements to classes, new weapons, many new missions, older missions, new maps, old locations, and much more. This feels like the most content-packed EDF game yet, and is incredible value for its asking price.

Since this review is going to focus on the Steam Deck version of the game, I won’t spend too much time on the story. I will say that Earth Defense Force 6’s narrative is stronger than past games, and you will get the most out of it if you played Earth Defense Force 5. This is an Earth Defense Force for fans of the series first and foremost. Newcomers will still find a lot of great writing, humor, and everything we love about Earth Defense Force’s dialog here. Yes, that includes the same English voice option. You can choose Korean, Chinese, and Japanese voice options as well on Steam if you’d prefer those.

Earth Defense Force 6 is structured similar to Earth Defense Force 5. The game is split up into the offline mission mode that has the main campaign, online mission mode letting you create rooms or join rooms with friends and randoms, and the split-screen mode. Don’t expect a drop-in drop-out online experience here. Calling this Earth Defense Force 5.5 is pretty accurate, but that isn’t a bad thing in most ways, just that this isn’t the major new step forward for the franchise that some might have wanted. I look at it as an “if it ain’t broke” situation, because the last thing we need is another Iron Rain.

Before getting into the PC port and the options, Earth Defense Force 6 uses Epic Online Services for multiplayer. I don’t know if this specific situation requires you to login or something since I’ve done that before, but I wanted to make a note of it. The only crossplay on PC is between the Steam and Epic Games Store versions as far as I can tell. I had access to the PS4, PS5, and Steam versions of Earth Defense Force 6, and I even tried creating lobbies and searching across platforms. PS4 and PS5 can play together, but PC is separate sadly. Hopefully the next Earth Defense Force is built for crossplay from the start.

On the control side, Earth Defense Force 6 is similar to Earth Defense Force 5 where it forces you into the input you used on the title screen. On Steam Deck, pressing any button results in that controller being set. Tapping the touchscreen results in the game forcing you into keyboard and mouse and so on. To play the game docked, I had to make sure I press a button on my bluetooth controller so it lets me play with that. The re-ordering controller menu didn’t seem to work perfectly here. I hope this specific thing can be fixed, but given Earth Defense Force 5 is the same, I don’t think it will be addressed. Speaking of controls, you can rebind controls for each class from the game settings menu.

To test Earth Defense Force 6 online multiplayer on Steam Deck, I had two specific situations set up. The first is normal multiplayer with a friend. Inviting my friend to a room I created was a bit finicky and required using the d-pad communication menu to send an invite through Steam (or Epic). Once done, my friend joined in and we played online without issues. He was in another continent and we had no issues over wifi playing missions. The second thing I tested is Steam Remote Play together. This isn’t close to an ideal way for two people to play, but I wanted to see how Earth Defense Force 6 splitscreen gameplay looked and ran on Steam Deck. It drops below 30fps regularly in splitscreen unsurprisingly, but it still worked. I imagine the console version will be similar here.

With the online and control details out of the way, Earth Defense Force 6 has the same PC port features as Earth Defense Force 5. This means the graphics options are a toggle for anti-aliasing (with a live preview on the model next to the menu), a toggle for shadows, and anisotropic filtering (off to 16x). The Earth Defense Force 6 graphics options menu also lets you adjust the screen setting. This lets you choose display mode, toggle letterbox, and adjust resolution. Earth Defense Force 6 runs at 16:9 on Steam Deck despite showing 800p support in the resolution option.

When playing Earth Defense Force 6 on both my Steam Deck OLED and LCD models, performance was similar. When playing solo, expect to see around 40fps as an average regardless of your graphics options. I turned everything off to test, and then everything on to test. It didn’t make much of a difference outside shadows in some maps. I didn’t play at a lower resolution as of this writing since that frame rate was fine with me for playing on Steam Deck. I did play EDF2 on PS Vita and EDF World Brothers on Switch after all. For what it is worth, Earth Defense Force 6 doesn’t even hold 60fps locked on PS5 so this isn’t really surprising. Don’t expect it to run like Earth Defense Force 5 does, at least not yet on Steam Deck. I noticed it runs a bit better with the newest Proton GE, but stability was an issue with multiple crashes when I tested. I stuck to playing on Proton Experimental (bleeding edge) and only had 2 crashes in 20 hours of playing on Steam Deck. I’ve put in well over 50 hours into the game on PS5 and not had a single crash there.

The PS5 version of Earth Defense Force 6 has PS5 Activity Cards support and loads very fast, but performance is not perfect in any of the three graphics modes. The modes are 4K (better speed), 4K (better image quality), and full HD (better speed). I play on a 1440p monitor so I stuck to full HD for the best performance. It can’t hold a locked 60fps even there. I’ve not had time to test the PS4 version of the game on PS5 via backward compatibility to see if that gives the most stable frame rate yet. If I do get around to that, I’ll update this. The 4K better speed seems like a good compromise between a higher frame rate and performance. I would not recommend the 4K image quality mode at all. It feels like that is better suited to Sony’s next console given how it runs. Check out a screenshot from the opening when using PS5 Activity Cards below:

Regardless of the platform you play on, I recommend looking at the camera settings under game settings. I stuck to Camera Type 1 and also increased the rotation speed. The defaults were too claustrophobic for my liking.

Earth Defense Force 6 also ships with a lot of DLC from day one as usual. I want to make it clear that the base game has more than enough content for its asking price. I don’t have access to any of the DLC yet, so I cannot comment on the weapons or missions yet. I will be playing them in the future and likely reviewing the DLC packs since I did enjoy DLC in prior games.

For a game that can’t even hold a locked 60fps when running at 1080p on PS5, Earth Defense Force 6 on Steam Deck runs and looks a lot better than I expected. The game itself is a fantastic sequel to Earth Defense Force 5, and it might be my favorite game in the series yet. I’m looking forward to replaying many missions with friends and also getting the DLC packs in the near future. The wait for Earth Defense Force 6 in the West was long, but the payoff is absolutely worth it.

Earth Defense Force 6 Steam Deck review score: 4.5/5

Furniture & Mattress’ debut title, Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, finally arrives this week for iOS and Android through Netflix, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC worldwide. I didn’t bother playing the demo, but having played the full game on multiple platforms, I can safely say that Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is a superlative puzzle game that I recommend everyone check out. If you have an active Netflix subscription, Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is immediately one of the best games available on that service, but the iOS release I’ve played is lacking in one area compared to the PC and Switch versions. I’m going to cover why I love Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure and also how it feels across Switch and Steam Deck in this review focusing on the Netflix version.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure has you playing as Jemma who moves on a grid, and also moves most objects and people in the same row or column as her. There are some exceptions like monsters of other objects with a purple glow around them, but you basically explore, solve puzzles, and even engage in combat (not directly) through your grid movement across the world. Jemma can also loop around the edges of rows and columns, and all this plays a huge part in solving puzzles, moving ahead, and discovering more of not only the world, but also yourself in Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure.

If you go for the critical path and avoid exploring beyond, I imagine you won’t take more than four hours or so to complete Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure. I got stuck a few times and didn’t want to use the assists until I was replaying the game on another platform to see how later areas looked and wanted to just speed through things. Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure has basically no padding and felt perfectly paced even when I got stuck a few times. You can definitely tell the pedigree of the developers involved here with how it oozes polish in so many ways.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is very forgiving. The puzzles don’t penalize you for a mistake, and you basically can keep trying to find the solution for your current predicament as Jemma. This could be trying to get a sword block moved to a monster to clear a path or getting any object onto a switch to unlock a door or move forward. Despite the lovely logical grid-based puzzles that will have light bulbs going off in your head often, there is an assist mode that lets you skip some of the puzzles if you find yourself banging your head at something with no success. Seeing how this is implemented made me realize how Furniture & Mattress basically had all their bases covered with Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure. This is a complete, accessible, and stunning puzzle game made for everyone.

Visually, Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is stunning. David Hellman’s art is incredible, and Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure manages to impress all the way. I figured a game with so much hand-drawn art would be locked to 16:9 or something, but the developers have made sure it looks and feels great on every device. It has 16:10 support on Steam Deck, ultrawide support on iPhone 15 Pro, and is fullscreen on my iPad. I have no complaints with the visuals outside of the fact that I can’t buy an artbook for Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure yet.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure on iPhone and iPad supports progress syncing through Netflix accounts as usual, but I was surprised at the lack of proper high frame rate options. You might think that doesn’t matter in a game like this, but having played it on Switch where it targets 60fps and feels smooth across the board and also Steam Deck where it runs even higher, the iPhone and iPad versions of Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure felt sluggish. It has a performance mode option, but that still doesn’t let you play at 60fps on iPhone 15 Pro or my iPad Pro (2020). I hope this can be added in the future as the game feels noticeably smoother on even Switch. Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure does play well with both touch controls and a controller on iOS and Switch.

On the console and PC side, the team did a fantastic job with Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure on Switch. It has good HD Rumble and full touchscreen support in addition to traditional controls. As I said above, I found myself playing it with touch controls in handheld often, but used my 8BitDo Ultimate controller when playing docked. Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure feels perfect on Switch, and it was great to see it Steam Deck Verified pre-release with it playing like a dream on Valve’s handheld.

While the visuals are impressive, the audio design in Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is another aspect of the game I love. The sound effects are perfect and the music perfectly fits the various locations you explore as Jemma. The score might seem very good early on, but it shows its true greatness after you finish the opening area and leave town. Tomás Batista absolutely nailed the score in Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is a gorgeous and essential puzzle game. It is stunning, has excellent puzzles, sounds amazing, and is a joy to play across the board. Having now experienced it on iPhone, iPad, Switch, and Steam Deck, it joins Lorelei and the Laser Eyes as my favorite puzzle games of 2024. This is absolutely one of the best additions to Netflix Games yet as well. I can’t wait to replay it on PS5 in the future.

Resident Evil 7 biohazard (Free) is one of the most important Capcom games of the last 10 years as far as I’m concerned. It felt like a turning point for the publisher back in 2017 when we saw the PS4 get multiple superb releases from Japan within a short period including Persona 5, Yakuza 0, NieR Automata, and more. Resident Evil 7 biohazard was the start of what I consider the “Capcom is back” phase that is still going on. The publisher consistently puts out games I love each year, and Resident Evil 7 biohazard was the start. Since launching on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, it has seen PS5 and Xbox Series X upgrades and a cloud version for Switch in select regions. More than 13 million copies later, Resident Evil 7 biohazard arrived on iPhone 15 Pro, macOS and iPad (M1 and later), and this is easily Capcom’s best Resident Evil port yet to Apple hardware.

What set Resident Evil 7 biohazard apart back in 2017, was in how it was genuinely a horror game first and foremost. Fast forward to today, Resident Evil 7 biohazard remains excellent with its immersive and scary atmosphere, interesting story, stunning visuals, and more. The RE Engine is truly one of the best in the business, and it has been awesome seeing it scale down to iPhone 15 Pro while delivering smooth gameplay and great visuals. Yes, Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iPhone is actually a great version of the game in general, not just great because it is on a phone or iPad. Not only is the full experience present here, but it actually feels better to play (with a Backbone) than it did back in the day on PS4 where I first played it. Resident Evil 7 biohazard was always a technical showcase even on consoles, but being able to play it with HDR at and targeting 60fps on my iPhone 15 Pro is something else.

If you’ve not played Resident Evil 7 biohazard before, it is a great entry point into the series, and one of the best Capcom games. The first person horror experience has you taking on the role of Ethan Winters looking for his wife while trying to survive gruesome enemies, solve puzzles, and more. While the prior games like Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6 had more of an action focus, this one went back to the first person survival horror roots. I know there’s a lot of discourse for first person, third person, action focus, and horror focus in the Resident Evil community, but I can safely say that Resident Evil 7 biohazard, Resident Evil Village, and the remakes of 2,3, and 4 are all worth playing for fans of the series. It is great that we have such a spread across the different kinds of main Resident Evil games as well today, and that’s even reflected on iPhone with both Resident Evil 7 biohazard and Resident Evil Village being available alongside Resident Evil 4 Remake and Resident Evil 2 Remake joining in.

When Resident Evil 7 biohazard was announced for iOS, an auto fire option was revealed. I wasn’t sure if we’d see Capcom put more effort into touch, or just hope players use a controller as usual. Having now played Resident Evil 7 biohazard on my iPhone 15 Pro, the team bringing the game to Apple hardware has done a lot more here compared to Capcom’s prior releases, but it isn’t as good as Assassin’s Creed Mirage is when it comes to controls. This is definitely a big step in the right direction though. You don’t need to use on-screen buttons for all navigation anymore. It feels like a port that actually does more for touch controls than Resident Evil Village or Resident Evil 4.

In addition to the usual touch control customization, you can toggle an auto fire option on and various control settings before getting to the other surprising part of Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iOS. This release actually has a few notable graphics options. The display options also have HDR support, which was toggled on by default on my iPhone 15 Pro. On the graphics side, you can use one of three presets: prioritize graphics, prioritize performance, and balanced. You can also adjust screen resolution (1560×720, 1952×900, 2342×1080, and 2556×1179), FOV (70 to 90), toggle motion blur, and toggle depth of field.

Resident Evil 7 biohazard in its current state even on the prioritize performance mode can’t maintain a locked 60fps all the way. There are drops, but I ended up sticking to this mode with a higher resolution option selected to play. I find it hard to enjoy most first person games at 30fps, especially with bad frame pacing. Capcom needs to improve the 30fps cap’s frame pacing in Resident Evil 7 biohazard because it doesn’t feel perfect. Visually, Resident Evil 7 biohazard looks excellent and makes use of the full aspect ratio aside from the 16:9 cut-scenes. I don’t have a supported iPad to test out Resident Evil 7 biohazard though, but it played a lot nicer than Resident Evil 4 Remake did on my MacBook Air. This video is a good showcase of how it runs on different iPad models.

Resident Evil 7 biohazard is a free to try game on Apple hardware. The full game unlock is priced at $19.99 (including Not a Hero and Dirty Coin) with an additional $19.99 for an upgrade to the Gold Edition with all DLC included (Banned Footage Volume 1 and 2, End of Zoe, and Survival Pack). The major DLC for Resident Evil 7 biohazard is also really good and having all of it for $39.99 with a comparatively excellent conversion plus it being a universal purchase across iPhone 15 Pro (and Pro Max), iPadOS, and macOS with iCloud save syncing makes this an amazing value proposition for newcomers to the game. This price also matches the Gold Edition bundle price on Steam.

While I wanted to give Resident Evil 7 biohazard a fair chance with touch controls to try out the auto fire option, I also used my USB-C Backbone One controller to see how it felt with traditional controls. The first thing to note is Resident Evil 7 biohazard only seems to support Xbox button prompts even when using a DualSense wirelessly or my PlayStation edition Backbone controller. Capcom confirmed that keyboard and mouse gameplay is not supported in Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iPad or iPhone.

Speaking of Steam, I redownloaded Resident Evil 7 biohazard on Steam Deck to see how it feels today. After some cut-scene issues with Proton, a surprise considering the game is Steam Deck Verified, Resident Evil 7 biohazard ran flawlessly. Obviously a PS4 generation game is expected to run better than PS5 or cross-generation titles, but Resident Evil 7 biohazard is a joy to play on both iPhone 15 Pro and Steam Deck. The latter is definitely the best way to experience it on the go, but this iPhone 15 Pro version is close. If you were turned off by how Resident Evil 4 Remake or Village ran on your phone, you should give this one a shot to see how much better it runs and feels.

Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iPhone 15 Pro is Capcom’s best conversion yet in the series, but it isn’t perfect. A bit more optimization would go a long way, but this is finally a game I can recommend on iPhone without big caveats. It is even good to play with touch controls now, but something like a Backbone or Razer Kishi will give you the best experience. I also love being able to take my progress to my MacBook Air and continue playing there. Resident Evil 7 biohazard gives me hope that we might see a similarly performing port for Resident Evil 2 Remake whenever that arrives on iPhone 15 Pro. Until then, this is Capcom’s best Resident Evil port on iPhone by a big margin, and Resident Evil 7 biohazard itself is an excellent entry in the amazing series.