Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

The counterintuitive thing about Lorelei in 2026 is the platform call. Buying it on the original Nintendo Switch in 2024 turned out to be forward-compatible: the Switch 2 Edition that arrived in April 2026 is a free Upgrade Pack for existing owners, and the performance jump is real. Most ports of older games to Switch 2 charge for the upgrade. Lorelei does not.

Game overview

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a puzzle-mystery from Simogo, the studio behind Sayonara Wild Hearts, Year Walk, and Device 6, published by Annapurna Interactive. You play a woman summoned to a remote Eastern European hotel by an enigmatic film director who is calling it an “art project”. The hotel is the puzzle. Combination locks on locked rooms, hand-typed dossiers to read across in different orders, mathematical riddles tied to date and door numbers, and a small set of randomised core solutions so two readers playing alongside each other will not always converge on the same final answer.

It is the rare modern puzzle game built around the assumption that the player will keep a notebook open. There are 150-plus puzzles in the building. The number of them you carry away on paper is a fair proxy for how much of the game you actually solved.

Where you can play it

Lorelei shipped 16 May 2024 simultaneously on Steam and Nintendo Switch. The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions followed on 3 December 2024. The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition arrived on 23 April 2026, free as an Upgrade Pack for original-Switch owners and $24.99 for new buyers.

Notably absent: Xbox in any form (no Series X|S, no Xbox One, no Game Pass appearance of any kind). Also absent: GOG and Epic Games Store on PC (Steam is the only digital storefront), and any native macOS or Linux build. Apple Silicon Mac players reach the game through Steam Deck Proton, not a native port.

The Switch 2 Edition is the standout: 1080p at 120 fps in handheld mode, and either 1440p at 120 fps or 4K at 60 fps when docked. The original Switch build sits at 60 fps. On Steam Deck the game runs Verified at around 90 fps, drawing 9 to 11 W (so roughly 5 to 5.5 hours of battery), with Simogo’s own published guidance to force Proton 7 because Proton 9 introduced a minor line-rendering quirk that has not been fixed at the Valve side. PS5 ships at 60 fps and gets the DualSense touches in the notes block above.

No mobile release. Not on Xbox.

Cross-saves and keeping your progress

There is no cross-save between any of the storefronts. Steam Cloud syncs your save within Steam (Steam Deck included). A Steam playthrough does not transfer to Switch. A Switch playthrough does not transfer to PlayStation. A PS4 save transfers to PS5 only through Sony’s standard one-console-family path.

The Switch and Switch 2 case is the cleanest exception, and even then it is not cross-save in the textbook sense. The Switch 2 Edition is the same Nintendo Account purchase as the original Switch release — install the free Upgrade Pack from the eShop and the existing save you started on the original Switch is the save you continue with on Switch 2. From the system’s point of view it is the same SKU, not two builds talking to each other.

The practical read for portable players: pick one corridor and stay in it. Steam plus Steam Deck is the cleanest pairing for a PC-handheld continuity story. Switch plus Switch 2 covers handheld-plus-handheld inside Nintendo’s ecosystem and is the only path that lets you keep a save when you upgrade the device. PS4 plus PS5 sits alongside both as the home-console route with the DualSense flourishes.

Features that matter on the move

• No autosave. Manual saves only. Lorelei is built around the assumption that you choose your stop point intentionally. Useful when you want full control of your puzzle-thinking; awkward if your handheld habit is five-minute bursts on the way to work. Plan for 30 to 60 minute sessions you can finish a thought inside.
• 150-plus puzzles, some randomised, which makes a wiki run-through partly defeat the design. The game more or less expects you to keep a notebook.
• 10 to 15 hours main story, 17 to 20 plus completionist. A weekend portable companion, not a multi-week handheld habit.
• Controller recommended even on PC. No mouse support at all, and the keyboard mapping is awkward enough that the community wrote a mod (“LoreleiAndSaneControls”) that adds a back button. On Switch and Switch 2 the Joy-Con and Pro Controller behave normally, with a quirky non-standard A/B/X mapping (X exits menus rather than B) that takes a session to internalise.
• Battery profile on Steam Deck: 9 to 11 W draw, roughly 5 to 5.5 hours on a full charge. Well inside the long-haul flight envelope.
• Suspend-resume: anecdotally fine on both Steam Deck and Switch, though Simogo has not published a definitive statement. Combined with the no-autosave design the practical guidance is unchanged: save manually before you put the device down.

Recommended setup

For a one-pad portable-plus-home loop, the 8BitDo Pro 2 covers Switch, Switch 2, Steam Deck, and PC with native pairing on each. PS5 owners already have a DualSense, and Lorelei’s PS5 build is one of the few releases that actually exercises both the controller speaker (padlock-puzzle audio) and the lightbar (it tints to match Lorelei’s sunglasses through the game).

On Steam Deck specifically: Verified status, force Proton 7 from Properties to Compatibility before you start a serious run, and expect black bars in handheld mode (the game targets 16:9 and does not stretch).

See our controllers guide for the wider multi-device picks, the cross-saves cornerstone for the broader picture on which 2025-26 releases actually let you carry a save between devices, and the Steam Deck vs Switch 2 cornerstone for which handheld fits which kind of player.

Verdict

The puzzle game to beat from this stretch of indie releases, and the rare modern title where buying it on the older Nintendo Switch in 2024 was a forward-compatible decision: the Switch 2 Edition is free, and the 120 fps handheld plus 4K docked are genuine. There is no cross-save with any other platform, so pick a corridor (Steam plus Deck for PC-handheld continuity, Switch plus Switch 2 for the longest Nintendo runway, or PS5 for the DualSense flourishes) and commit. A weekend project on a long-haul flight, not a five-minute-commute filler.