Alabaster Dawn: Radical Fish's new action-RPG shines on the Steam Deck

There’s a rare kind of early access: one that’s already more polished than many “complete” games. After spending a good few hours playing Alabaster Dawn on my Steam Deck—lying on the couch and solemnly ignoring the monitor on my desk—I can say that Radical Fish Games has delivered exactly that. Early access began on May 7, 2026, covers up to the middle of Chapter 2 (somewhere between 6 and 10 hours), and costs R$ 83.99—and the quick verdict is: if you liked CrossCode, go for it without hesitation.

The Pressure of Following Up on CrossCode

First of all, a clarification worth making: Alabaster Dawn is the work of Radical Fish Games, the German studio behind CrossCode (2018)—don’t confuse it with Heart Machine, the studio behind Hyper Light Drifter, as I’ve seen happen myself thanks to the stylized top-down action-RPG aesthetic. The confusion makes sense on the surface, but these are two very different schools of thought: while Hyper Light Drifter embraces minimalism and silence, Radical Fish is maximalist—systems upon systems, generous dialogue, and that millimeter-precise combat that made CrossCode a cult classic.

CrossCode took seven years to come to fruition and became one of the most beloved indie games of the past decade. The inevitable question was: how to top that? The studio’s answer was to build a new engine from scratch and aim higher in every aspect—scope, animation, and narrative. The plan is ambitious: seven chapters, about 40 hours at full release, and at least two years of early access ahead. And the reception speaks volumes: the game debuted on Steam with an “extremely positive” rating, hovering around 96% based on over a thousand reviews.

Tiran Sol, Nyx, and an Exiled Chosen One

You play as Juno, the “Exiled Chosen One,” who awakens in Tiran Sol, a world ravaged by a corruption called Nyx—a shadow that has twisted everything into a wasteland and caused the gods themselves to vanish. The mission is twofold: to break the curse and guide humanity’s rebirth, rebuilding settlements as the map literally comes back to life around you.

What hooked me wasn’t the premise (saving the world—okay, been there, done that), but the way Radical Fish paces the revelations. There’s a genuine mystery surrounding Juno’s past and the reason for her exile, and the game has the patience to let those questions breathe. The dialogue has the same charm as CrossCode—characters who feel like real people, humor that hits just the right note—but the cutscenes have taken a noticeable leap in production quality. The community summed it up well: everything that was great about CrossCode made the transition, with better presentation and less frustrating puzzles.

Eight divine weapons and combat that’s a joy to experience

The heart of the game is the combat—and what a heart it is. Juno wields eight divine weapons—always in pairs of melee and ranged weapons—that can be infused with one of four elements. The rhythm is clear: read the enemy, land the perfect parry, fill the break gauge, and then unleash maximum damage during the vulnerability window. On paper, it seems like the genre’s standard fare; in practice, the responsive timing and generous (but not overly lenient) defense window make every encounter fast-paced, aggressive, and easy to read.

Progression keeps pace with the action: each weapon has its own skill tree, with combos that synergize across different types, and the gem system functions as equipable status modifiers, complete with crafting. There’s also cooking for buffs—collecting ingredients quickly becomes addictive—and an optional roguelike mode for those who want replayability beyond the campaign. Is that a lot of systems? Yes. But nothing is thrown at you all at once, and by the middle of Chapter 1, it all clicked for me.

2.5D pixel art with the soul of animation

Visually, Alabaster Dawn is the most vibrant pixel art I’ve played in years. The trick lies in the animation: the characters use 16 directional angles instead of the traditional 8, with independently animated limbs. The result is a fluidity so good it’s almost surreal—Juno spins, glides, and attacks with a naturalness you simply wouldn’t expect from this style. The multi-layered terrain, a direct legacy of CrossCode, adds real verticality to exploration, and the subdued-yet-vibrant color palette makes the world corrupted by Nyx feel melancholic without being gray.

A soundtrack that embraces the world

The soundtrack follows the fantasy playbook of great RPGs, alternating between contemplative themes in the devastated areas and tracks that pick up the pace alongside combat. On the Steam Deck’s headphones, the sound design is the standout feature: every strike, parry, and guard break has a tactile click that enhances the combat—half the satisfaction of landing a perfect parry comes from the audio. It’s not (yet) a soundtrack I’ll listen to outside the game the way I did with CrossCode, but within the game it works beautifully, and there’s plenty of gameplay ahead for the soundtrack to grow.

On the Steam Deck: a perfect fit

Now, the reason I played all of this while lying down: the experience on the Steam Deck is excellent. I played the PC version via Steam on the OLED Deck, and the game—which even has native Linux support—ran smoothly from start to finish: stable frame rate, no noticeable stutters even in the most effects-heavy fights, and impressively fast load times for an early access title. I didn’t have to tweak a thing: the default settings already deliver stable performance on the handheld.

Since it’s a lightweight 2.5D game, the battery benefits: my sessions comfortably lasted around 4 hours or more per charge, with moderate brightness. The interface and text are perfectly legible on the 7-inch screen—no microscopic fonts—and the controls are tailor-made for a gamepad. I’m not the only one: the community has been saying that the game “runs great on the Steam Deck; it feels like a natural fit,” and I couldn’t agree more. If the Deck is your primary platform, this is one of those cases where the handheld is, perhaps, the best place to play.