Mobile gamers are feasting right now. We are practically drowning in a weekly schedule of console-quality titles released on the Apple App Store and Google’s Play Store.

This week’s headline act is the mobile debut of The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin. Following its recent rollout on PC via Steam and the Sony PlayStation 5, this free-to-play, open-world action RPG is turning heads. By bringing the game to mobile, Netmarble has kicked off a full-fledged cross-platform ecosystem that bridges the gap between your PS5, your desktop rig, and your daily driver. And because it features seamless cross-progression tied to a single account, you can grind out a few quests on your phone during the morning commute, then pick up exactly where you left off on the big screen later that evening.

If you have a compatible iOS or Android device, the live service has started. Be warned, though: It’s quite a hefty install. The game clocked in at a massive 37GB on our Android smartphones, so expect a similarly large footprint if you are rocking an iPhone.

For the uninitiated, The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin is based on the popular Japanese manga and anime The Seven Deadly Sins, an IP boasting over 55 million copies sold globally. True to the lore, you are set loose to explore the vast, vibrant world of Britannia. But instead of playing as the original sins, you step into the boots of Tristan — the son of two central characters (we won’t spoil them) — as he carves out a completely new storyline.

You don’t have to go it alone, either. While solo play is fully supported, Origin leans heavily into multiplayer elements as well. You can link up in co-op with up to five players (the host included), form exploration parties, or squad up to take down troublesome bosses.

Early performance woes

Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: The global rollout of The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin on PC and PS5 wasn’t flawless, suffering from numerous issues, including severe audio disruptions. Sadly, the mobile launch has inherited its own set of headaches, which became glaringly obvious during our hands-on time.

The core issue, it seems, is brutal optimization. The game generates a massive amount of heat and delivers inconsistent performance, even when running on flagship devices built around Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor.

We put The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin through its paces on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and the Xiaomi 17. Both powerhouses failed to sustain a stable 60 FPS, even when we knocked the graphics down to the Medium preset. Worse still, we experienced jarring framerate spikes and outright force-closes during relatively short bursts of gameplay.

Given that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 has the muscle to run grueling open-world PC heavyweights like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Marvel’s Spider-Man — something we can personally attest to — we highly doubt the silicon is the bottleneck here. The software just needs work.

You don’t have to take our word for it, though. A quick scroll through the Play Store reviews reveals a graveyard of similar complaints from players dealing with the exact same throttling and crashing on their respective devices.

We’re hoping Netmarble releases a patch soon. Underneath the technical mess, we’ve enjoyed the Genshin Impact-style combat and the eclectic cast of familiar — and unfamiliar — characters.

The silver lining here is that The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin literally just launched. There’s plenty of time for Netmarble to script a massive redemption arc, assuming they can fix the uneven performance before players get burned out.

Bumps in the road aside, we’re still thankful. The sheer scale of this release proves that developers are finally heeding the call of the gaming community. Modern smartphone and tablet chipsets are rapidly closing the gap with PCs, with today’s top-tier silicon packing enough brute force to run PC emulators and demanding AAA games natively. Heck, even Apple’s iPhone processors have been vindicated, proving capable of running full-on macOS and desktop applications without so much as a sputter.

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