Not knowing Valve's exact criteria for marking games as Verified just adds to the question we pose today; should Final Fantasy VII Rebirth be Verified for the Steam Deck?
As long as it works is all that matters, right?
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is playable on Steam Deck but if you have watched the video above you will see we are dipping below the 30 FPS mark too often for our liking. In cutscenes, this isn't too big of an issue even if it may break your immersion from the story which the series is famous for. The bigger issue is during the exploration of towns and when switching characters during combat.
It has been a very hit-or-miss experience trying to maintain 30 FPS with the default settings during testing. Loading in the textures of the towns has been the worst-performing area with drops into the low 20s breaking our focus. The default low settings can improve our FPS but unfortunately, they make the game look extremely blurry.
For the best experience, we have some settings recommendations for you. You can view these in more detail here. If we set the graphics pre-set to low, adjust the minimum dynamic resolution scaling to 66% and select medium texture resolution. With these settings, you will notice an improved image quality and playable frame pacing.
This game was of course only just released yesterday, January 23rd so we can expect future patches to address the issues we have found. While Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is technically "Verified" we would file this one under "Playable" for the time being.