Blue Protocol: Star Resonance on Steam Deck — Settings, Performance, and First Impressions

The latest mobile MMORPG gacha hit, Blue Protocol: Star Resonance, is drawing plenty of attention. While community sentiment is mixed, it’s attracting a healthy player base. There’s no official Steam Deck status yet, but based on hands-on testing it feels worthy of a Verified tag from a playability standpoint.

Gameplay and pacing

Expect a classic mobile gacha structure: time-gated progression with energy systems. In the opening hours, those gates aren’t too restrictive, but they’re present. The flow leans heavily on traversal, frequent cutscenes, and a lot of on-screen text to read. Audio is dubbed, but you’ll still be reading through plenty of dialogue.

Best settings for Steam Deck

For the smoothest experience on Deck, drop the graphics preset to the lowest option and cap the game at 60 FPS. Use the “close” super resolution setting and select TAA for anti-aliasing; FSR3, in this case, looks notably poor. Visually, enabling the character black outline helps the art style pop and prevents characters from blending into the background.

Performance breakdown

• Open world: Typically hovers around 50–60 FPS. Expect dips when the world gets busy—crowds, sudden character pop-ins, and active combat can drag frames down briefly.

• Instances and dungeons: Much steadier, often holding close to a locked 60 FPS.

• Town hubs: Heavier scenes sit in the 40–50 FPS range.

Overall, with the recommended settings the Deck delivers a mostly fluid experience, with the most noticeable slowdowns in dense town areas.

Controller support and quirks

Controller support works out of the box, but the bindings are unconventional and take time to learn. Standard attack is mapped to X and also serves as confirm in menus, yet the in-world interaction/action prompt is bound to B. A functions as a back-out input in menus, doubles as sprint, while B is also used to jump. Some bindings can be remapped, but the core layout (including those main actions) is locked, which makes the scheme feel inconsistent.

Verdict

If you’re hunting for a new free-to-play MMORPG to sink time into, Blue Protocol: Star Resonance is worth a look on Steam Deck. With the right settings, performance is generally solid minus expected dips in busy hubs, and the stylized visuals are served well by TAA and character outlines. The odd control scheme is the main hurdle, but for a no-cost entry with plenty to do, it’s easy to recommend giving it a spin.