Octopath Traveler 0 is great on Steam Deck, but what about Nintendo Switch 2?
Octopath Traveler 0 is launching next month for consoles and PC worldwide. Ahead of its release, I had a chance to check out the Nintendo Switch 2 and Steam versions for this preview. My impressions focusing on visuals and performance are based on a few hours with the full game's Steam version on Steam Deck OLED and the Switch 2 version played handheld and docked on my 1440p monitor. I will have a longer comparison feature going up around the game's launch where I cover the other versions as well.
Octopath Traveler 0 Nintendo Switch 2 impressions
Square Enix's recent Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake Switch 2 version offered an option to play with crisp visuals and a 30fps target or softer visuals for a 60fps target. With Octopath Traveler 0, there are no performance or graphics options and the game appears to be targeting 1080p and 60fps docked with it running sub 1080p with a 60fps target handheld. I say target because Octopath Traveler 0 suffers from frame pacing and other performance issues in both modes right now, but it feels worse when playing handheld. I noticed drops below 60fps during exploration in locations featuring heavy particle or weather effects even early on.
In addition to some frame pacing issues when moving in towns or even outdoors (barring dungeons where it has less issues), the game has trouble holding its 60fps target docked in some particle heavy moments as well. Drops during combat aren't a huge deal, but it feels like at least in its current state, Octopath Traveler 0 on Switch 2 is not as polished as Square Enix's recent Switch 2 releases with Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake and Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Nintendo Switch 2 Edition.
Note: The docked images above have been captured through my 4K capture device.
Octopath Traveler 0 on Switch 2 also has poor texture filtering so you sometimes end up seeing blurry floor textures in the distance and run into some low quality textures in dungeons that look worse on Switch 2. I would've liked to have a 30fps option with better visuals since I do not care for playing HD-2D games without crisp visuals. Going from Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake to Octopath Traveler 0 on Switch 2 feels like a downgrade both in visuals with no modes, and in performance. I hope the frame pacing can at least be addressed for launch.
Note: The handheld images above have been captured through the Switch 2's system capture functionality.
Octopath Traveler 0 PC features and graphics options
Octopath Traveler 0 on PC supports 720p to 4K resolutions, three frame rate targets (30, 60, 120fps), the option to change display mode (windowed, borderless, fullscreen), Preset Rendering Options, UI texture resolution (720p, 1440p, or 4K), and then Rendering Options (graphics preset). To clear up the confusion with the naming of certain options, you can basically adjust the UI texture resolution and graphics options together with the "Preset Rendering Options" while the "Rendering Options" menu lets you adjust just the graphics preset (like in other games) with an auto detect feature. The auto detect feature sets the individual graphics options to High when playing on Steam Deck. The individual options you can adjust are anti-aliasing quality, post-processing quality, shadow quality, texture quality, effects quality, and LOD. Barring LOD which you can toggle on or off, all the options go across low, medium, high, and ultra levels.
The one option common to the PC and console versions is vignetting which you can keep at standard or set to minimal. Beyond graphics, the PC version of Octopath Traveler 0 also lets you rebind controller options, keyboard options, and select bindings for using the mouse. You can also enable or disable the ability to move the cursor with the mouse here.
Octopath Traveler 0 Steam Deck impressions
Octopath Traveler 0 on Steam Deck runs perfectly out of the box with a 60fps target and crisp visuals. It also brings up the keyboard correctly for text entry and has Steam Cloud support with full controller support. In the few hours I tested, I ran into no issues playing it and Octopath Traveler 0 looks fantastic on the Steam Deck OLED screen. It defaults to the high preset, but you can tweak things further if you want to aim for a 90fps target.
I decided to try out the Steam Deck docked as well on my 1440p monitor. Getting 60fps at 1080p or above isn't doable without turning down most settings a lot. I recommend aiming for 900p if you want 60fps docked unless you're ok playing at a mix or medium and low, but I need to see how later sections hold up when docked. I spent most of my time on Steam Deck playing handheld mode on the Steam Deck OLED where it is easily the best way to experience Octopath Traveler 0 on the go so far.
Octopath Traveler 0 Steam Deck recommended settings so far
Based on the opening hours, if you want to play at 60fps on Steam Deck with crisp visuals, you don't need to change anything, but you should cap the screen to 60hz if you play on a Steam Deck OLED. If you want to aim for 90fps, you cannot play with the high preset since it drops to the low 80s and high 70s at times in particle-heavy locations. During combat, I never saw the game dip below 60fps even on the high preset, but getting a locked 90fps doesn't seem viable right now without dropping to the medium preset or lower in some locations. I'll spend more time looking into this for my full recommended settings around launch, but I ended up sticking to a 60fps target on Steam Deck OLED for now.
While I wanted to focus on the differences and technical aspects of Octopath Traveler 0 on Steam Deck and Switch 2 for this preview, I want to note that I'm a bit disappointed in the English voice acting compared to the incredible dubs we had in Octopath Traveler and Octopath Traveler II. Octopath Traveler 0's dub isn't bad, but it is a step back and I ended up swapping over to Japanese voices during my playthroughs.
One other thing I want to cover is the inconsistent visuals. You can already see it in some of the screenshots in this article and the one above, but Octopath Traveler 0 has some oddly low quality textures used in the environment that stick out badly. Even when playing the PC version at its highest settings, these aren't really much better. It is a shame to have these in a series where the aesthetic was always strong and I never had any issues with the assets.
I'm looking forward to playing more of Octopath Traveler 0 and also checking it out on other platforms closer to launch. I'm most curious about how the Switch version will feel after playing it on Steam Deck and Switch 2 now.
Octopath Traveler 0 is set to release on December 4 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam).