Sonic Rumble has arrived on Steam and works on Linux / Steam Deck

Sonic Rumble from SEGA has arrived on Steam, and although it has anti-cheat it is enabled for Linux / Steam Deck so you're good to go on this one. Valve actually rated it Steam Deck Verified and it's listed on our anti-cheat page as it's compatible.

Not that you'll want to play it though. It's a free to play cheap imitation of Fall Guys wearing a Sonic skin, filled to the max with pretty crummy monetization. This looks and feels exactly like a mobile game, complete with the big button overlays in the PC release that you would expect to see on mobile.

The gameplay isn't even particularly fun. I've played a good bunch of rounds on it this morning to get the feel for it and after a few rounds you've pretty much seen it all, which wouldn't be too bad if it was actually fun but it just feels incredibly shallow. The maps range from a simple race while avoiding obstacles, to running around mashing a button to smash into things to collect the most coins and that's really all there is to it. It is very much Fall Guys Sonic, there's no other way to describe it.

Speaking as someone who grew up with Sonic on the Sega Mega Drive, I'm quite disappointed in what they've done to the hedgehog world here. I've no doubt mobile players would get sucked in by it, but this is not the type of experience you would expect to see or even work on PC. The monetization here is just — wow. Expensive. Completely ludicrous even.

Some of the skins cost a ridiculous amount of money. Just look at this one below with Neon Suit Sonic being on sale at 729 down from 999 Red Star Rings. How much is that in real money? Over £40 just to grab that one single skin. Put your wallets away, it's not worth it. You could buy some of the biggest and best games on Steam for the price of a single skin here.

That is the extreme end, so let's be a bit more fair to it because you can also buy a single emote for 99 red rings which is uh, still requiring you to spend about £10 just for that. Okay sure, it can't get worse right? Sure it can! You can spend £5 (minimum) to purchase a Tune-Up bundle to boost your characters in what looks like some pay to win bonus for your points during a round.

Nothing about this looks good. Crappy monetization and boring gameplay. One to skip.